Singapore Malay Heritage Center

Who are the ‘Malays’?

The Malay world is generally conceived as being bounded by Southeast Asia although the definition of the Malay person or Orang Melayu has shifted over time. The earliest reference for ‘Melayu’ is a kingdom in Jambi, Sumatra which had sent delegates to China in the 7^th century. This was recorded as a visit from the “Mo-lo-yu” kingdom in Chinese documents. Before the colonial era, the European regarded the Malay language as the region’s lingua franca which led to a genaralised identification of anyone from the Nusantara as Malay. The Malay language is also part of the extensive Austronesian language family and this resulted in the portrayal of Malay as encompassing the Chams of Cambodia and the Marino of Madagascar.

Besides the Malay language, the 15^th century Melaka Sultanate has always been upheld as the epitome of Malay culture.The Sultanate therefore played a key role in shaping the modern Malay identity along with language (Malay), religion (Islam), and customary traditions (adat Malayu). However, these criteria can accommodate a variety of people with diverse origins and ethnicities.

Traditional Malay Authority

Since the 14^th century CE, Singapore had been under the rule of different Malay kingdom including the Johor-Lingga-Riau Sultanate from the 16^th to 19^th centuries. In 1811, a succession dispute broke out when Sultan Mahmud Shah 111 dies without naming a heir. The Sultan eldest’s son, Tengku Hussein, received support from the British as the Sultan of Johor and Singapore while his younger half-brother, Abdur Rahman, was supported by Dutch as Sultan of Riau-Lingga. The intervention of these foreign powers eventually split the kingdom in to the aforementioned separate states.

During this period, there was a second power, the temenggong, a high-ranking official second only to the bendahara (grand vizier) who governed Singapore as part of his jajahan (fief). He was Temenggong Abdul Rahman, also of royal blood, who eventually migrated to Johor with his followers and was succeeded by his son, Daeng Ibrahim. In 1835, Sultan Hussein’s son, Sultan Ali, abdicated his rights to the throne to Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim who gained the rank of Sri Maharaja which was eventually converted to the title of Sultan of the modern Johor Sultanate.