The history of the Malay Archipelago during the last 600 years furnishes us with one of the most interesting chapters in the story of the spread of Islam by missionary efforts. During the whole of this period we find evidences of a continuous activity on the part of the Muhammadan missionaries, in one or other at least of the East India islands. In every instance, in the beginning, their work had to be carried on without any patronage or assistance from the rulers of the country, but solely by the force of persuasion, and in many cases in the face of severe opposition, especially on the part of the Spaniards. But in spite of all difficulties, and with varying success, they have prosecuted their efforts with untiring energy, perfecting their work (more especially in the present day) wherever it has been partial or insufficient.
It is impossible to fix the precise date of the first introduction of Islam into the Malay Archipelago. It may have been carried thither by the Arab traders in the early centuries of the Hijrah, long before we have any historical notices of such influences being at work. This supposition is rendered the more probable by the knowledge we have of the extensive commerce with the East carried on by the Arabs from very early times. In the second century B.C. the trade with Ceylon was wholly in their hands. At the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era, the trade with China, through Ceylon, received a great impulse, so that in the middle of the eighth century Arab traders were to be found in great numbers in Canton; while from the tenth to the fifteenth century, until the arrival of the Portuguese, they were undisputed masters of the trade with [[364]]the East.[1] We may therefore conjecture with tolerable certainty that they must have established their commercial settlements on some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, as they did elsewhere, at a very early period: though no mention is made of these islands in the works of the Arab geographers earlier than the ninth century,[2] yet in the Chinese annals, under the date A.D. 674, an account is given of an Arab chief, who from later notices is conjectured to have been the head of an Arab settlement on the west coast of Sumatra.[3]
Missionaries must also, however, have come to the Malay Archipelago from the south of India, judging from certain peculiarities of Muhammadan theology adopted by the islanders. Most of the Musalmans of the Archipelago belong to the Shāfiʻiyyah sect, which is at the present day predominant on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts, as was the case also about the middle of the fourteenth century when Ibn Baṭūṭah visited these parts.[4] So when we consider that the Muhammadans of the neighbouring countries belong to the Ḥanafiyyah sect, we can only explain the prevalence of Shāfiʻiyyah teachings by assuming them to have been brought thither from the Malabar coast, the ports of which were frequented by merchants from Java, as well as from China, Yaman and Persia.[5] From India, too, or from Persia, must have come the Shīʻism, of which traces are still found in Java and Sumatra. From Ibn Baṭūṭah we learn that the Muhammadan Sultan of Samudra had entered into friendly relations with the court of Dehli, and among the learned doctors of the law whom this devout prince especially favoured, there were two of Persian origin, the one coming from Shiraz and the other from Ispahan.[6] But long before this time merchants from the Deccan, through whose hands passed the trade between the Musalman states of India and the Malay Archipelago, had established themselves in large numbers in the trading [[365]]ports of these islands, where they sowed the seed of the new religion.[7]
It is to the proselytising efforts of these Arab and Indian merchants that the native Muhammadan population, which we find already in the earliest historical notices of Islam in these parts, owes its existence. Settling in the centres of commerce, they intermarried with the people of the land, and these heathen wives and the slaves of their households thus formed the nucleus of a Muslim community which its members made every effort in their power to increase. The following description of the methods adopted by these merchant missionaries in the Philippine Islands, gives a picture of what was no doubt the practice of many preceding generations of Muhammadan traders:—“The better to introduce their religion into the country, the Muhammadans adopted the language and many of the customs of the natives, married their women, purchased slaves in order to increase their personal importance, and succeeded finally in incorporating themselves among the chiefs who held the foremost rank in the state. Since they worked together with greater ability and harmony than the natives, they gradually increased their power more and more, as having numbers of slaves in their possession, they formed a kind of confederacy among themselves and established a sort of monarchy, which they made hereditary in one family. Though such a confederacy gave them great power, yet they felt the necessity of keeping on friendly terms with the old aristocracy, and of ensuring their freedom to those classes whose support they could not afford to dispense with.”[8] It must have been in some such way as this that the different Muhammadan settlements in the Malay Archipelago laid a firm political and social basis for their proselytising efforts. They did not come as conquerors, like the Spanish in the sixteenth century, or use the sword as an instrument of conversion; nor did they arrogate to themselves the privileges of a superior and dominant race so as to degrade and oppress the original inhabitants, but coming simply in the guise of traders they employed all [[366]]their superior intelligence and civilisation in the service of their religion, rather than as a means towards their personal aggrandisement and the amassing of wealth.[9] With this general statement of the subsidiary means adopted by them, let us follow in detail their proselytising efforts through the various islands in turn.
Tradition represents Islam as having been introduced into Sumatra from Arabia. But there is no sound historical basis for such a belief, and all the evidence seems to point to India as the source from which the people of Sumatra derived their knowledge of the new faith. Active commercial relations had existed for centuries between India and the Malay Archipelago, and the first missionaries to Sumatra were probably Indian traders.[10] There is, however, no historical record of their labours, and the Malay chronicles ascribe the honour of being the first missionary to Atjeh, in the north-west of Sumatra, to an Arab named ʻAbd Allāh ʻĀrif, who is said to have visited the island about the middle of the twelfth century; one of his disciples, Burhān al-Dīn, is said to have carried the knowledge of the faith down the west coast as far as Priaman.[11] Untrustworthy as this record is, it may yet possibly indicate the existence of some proselytising activity about this period; for the Malay chronicle of Atjeh gives 1205 as the date of the accession of Jūhan Shāh, the traditionary founder of the Muhammadan dynasty. He is said to have been a stranger from the West,[12] and to have come to these shores to preach the faith of the Prophet; he made many proselytes, married a wife from among the people of the country, and was hailed by them as their king, under the half-Sanskrit, half-Arabic title of Srī Padūka Sulṭān. For some time the new faith would in all probability have been confined to the ports at which Muhammadan merchants touched, and its progress inland would be slower, as here [[367]]it would come up against the strong Hindu influences that had their centre in the kingdom of Menangkabau.
Marco Polo, who spent five months on the north coast of Sumatra in 1292, speaks of all the inhabitants being idolaters, except in the petty kingdom of Parlāk on the north-east corner of the island, where, too, only the townspeople were Muhammadans, for “this kingdom, you must know, is so much frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the Law of Mahommet,” but the hill-people were all idolaters and cannibals.[13] Further, one of the Malay chronicles says that it was Sultan ʻAlī Mug͟hāyat Shāh, who reigned over Atjeh from 1507 to 1522, who first set the example of embracing Islam, in which he was followed by his subjects.[14] But it is not improbable that the honour of being the first Muslim ruler of the state has been here attributed as an added glory to the monarch who founded the greatness of Atjeh and began to extend its sway over the neighbouring country, and that he rather effected a revival of, or imparted a fresh impulse to, the religious life of his subjects than gave to them their first knowledge of the faith of the Prophet. For Islam had certainly set firm foot in Sumatra long before his time. According to the traditionary account of the city of Samudra, the Sharīf of Mecca sent a mission to convert the people of Sumatra. The leader of the party was a certain Shayk͟h Ismāʻīl: the first place on the island at which they touched, after leaving Malabar, was Pasuri (probably situated a little way down the west coast), the people of which were persuaded by their preaching to embrace Islam. They then proceeded northward to Lambri and then coasted round to the other side of the island and sailed as far down the east coast as Aru, nearly opposite Malacca, and in both of these places their efforts were crowned with a like success. At Aru they made inquiries for Samudra, a city on the north coast of the island, which seems to have been the special object of their mission, and found that they had passed it. Accordingly they retraced their course to Parlāk, where Marco Polo had found a Muhammadan community a few years before, and having gained fresh [[368]]converts here also, they went on to Samudra. This city and the kingdom of the same name had lately been founded by a certain Mara Silu, who was persuaded by Shayk͟h Ismāʻīl to embrace Islam, and took the name of al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ. He married the daughter of the king of Parlāk, by whom he had two sons, and in order to have a principality to leave to each, he founded the Muhammadan city and kingdom of Pasei, also on the north coast.[15]
The king, al-Malik al-Z̤āhir, whom Ibn Baṭūṭah found reigning in Samudra when he visited the island in 1345, was probably the elder of these two sons. This prince displayed all the state of Muhammadan royalty, and his dominions extended for many days’ journey along the coast; he was a zealous and orthodox Muslim, fond of holding discussions with jurisconsults and theologians, and his court was frequented by poets and men of learning. Ibn Baṭūṭah gives us the names of two jurisconsults who had come thither from Persia and also of a noble who had gone on an embassy to Dehli on behalf of the king—which shows that Sumatra was already in touch with several parts of the Muhammadan world. Al-Malik al-Z̤āhir was also a great general, and made war on the heathen of the surrounding country until they submitted to his rule and paid tribute.[16]
Islam had undoubtedly by this time made great progress in Sumatra, and after having established itself along the coast, began to make its way inland. The mission of Shayk͟h Ismāʻīl and his party had borne fruit abundantly, for a Chinese traveller who visited the island in 1413, speaks of Lambri as having a population of 1000 families, all of whom were Muslims “and very good people,” while the king and people of the kingdom of Aru were all of the same faith.[17] It was either about the close of the same century or in the fifteenth century, that the religion of the Prophet found adherents in the great kingdom of Menangkabau, whose territory at one time extended from one shore to another, and over a great part of the island, north and south of the equator.[18] Though its power had by this time much [[369]]declined, still as an ancient stronghold of Hinduism it presented great obstacles in the way of the progress of the new religion. Despite this fact, Islam eventually took firmer root among the subjects of this kingdom than among the majority of the inhabitants of the interior of the island.[19] It is very remarkable that this, the most central people of the island, should have been more thoroughly converted than the inhabitants of so many other districts that were more accessible to foreign influences. To the present day the inhabitants of the Batak country are still, for the most part, heathen; but Islam has gained a footing among them, e.g. some living on the borders of Atjeh have been converted, by their Muhammadan neighbours,[20] others dwelling in the mountains of the Rau country on the equator have likewise become Musalmans;[21] on the east coast also conversions of Bataks, who come much in contact with Malays, are not uncommon.[22]
The fanatical Padris (p. 372) made strenuous efforts, in vain, to force Islam upon the Bataks at the point of the sword, laying waste their country and putting many to death; but these violent methods did not win converts. When, however, the Dutch Government suppressed the Padri rising and annexed the southern part of the Batak country, Islam began to spread by peaceful means, chiefly through the zealous efforts of the native subordinate officials of the new régime, who were all Muhammadan Malays,[23] but also through the influence of the traders who wandered through the country, whose proselytising activity was followed up by the ḥājīs and other recognised teachers of the faith. It is a remarkable fact that the Bataks, who for centuries had offered a pertinacious resistance to the entrance of Islam into their midst, though they were hemmed in between two fanatical Muhammadan populations, the Achinese on the north and the Malays on the south, have in recent years responded with enthusiasm to the [[370]]peaceful efforts made for their conversion. An explanation would appear to be found in the breaking down of their exclusive national characteristics through the Dutch occupation and the conquest opening up their country to foreign influences, which implied the commencement of a new era in their cultural development, as well as in the skilful procedure of the exponents of the new faith, who knew how to accommodate their teachings to the existing beliefs of the Bataks and their deep-rooted superstitions.[24] A considerable impulse seems to have been given to Muslim propaganda by the establishment of Christian missions among the Bataks in 1897, and they appear even to have paved the way for its success. Two Batak villages, the entire population of which had been baptised, are said to have gone over in a body to Islam shortly afterwards.[25]
In Central Sumatra there is still a large heathen population, though the majority of the inhabitants are Muslims; but these latter are very ignorant of their religion, with the exception of a few ḥājīs and religious teachers: even among the people of Korintji, who are for the most part zealous adherents of the faith, there are certain sections of the population who still worship the gods of their pagan ancestors.[26] Efforts are, however, being made towards a religious revival, and the Muslim missionaries are making fresh conquests from among the heathen, especially along the west coast.[27] In the district of Sipirok a religious teacher attached to the mosque in the town of the same name, in a quarter of a century, converted the whole population of this district to Islam, with the exception of the Christians who were to be found there, mostly descendants of former slaves,[28] and a later missionary movement in the first decade of the twentieth century succeeded in winning over to Islam many of the Christians of this district, even [[371]]some living in the centre of the sphere of influence of the Christian mission.[29]