‘Strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’_ The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia

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Journal of Southeast Asian Studies Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (2009), 40: 567-591 Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2009 DOI: 10.1017/S0022463409990075 (About DOI) Published online: 2009 Table of Contents - Volume 40 - Special Issue 03 (The origins of the Southeast Asian Cold War) Research Article ‘Strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’: The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells

Abstract Sayyidi ‘strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’, borne on the eighteenth-century wave of Hadhrami migration to the Malay-Indonesian region, boosted indigenous traditions of charismatic leadership at a time of intense political challenge posed by Western expansion. The extemporary credentials and personal talents which made for sāda exceptionalism and lent continuity to Southeast Asian state-making traditions are discussed with particular reference to Perak, Siak and Pontianak. These case studies, representative of discrete sāda responses to specific circumstances, mark them out as lead actors in guiding the transition from ‘the last stand of autonomies’ to a new era of pragmatic collaboration with the West. Footnotes Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, Life Member, Clare Hall, Cambridge, was Professor of Asian History, University of Malaya. Correspondence in connection with this paper should be addressed to: [email protected] or ‘Serendip’, Illington, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 1RP. This is a revised version of a paper originally presented at a workshop on ‘Stranger-kings in Southeast Asia and elsewhere’ held in Jakarta in June 2006. The author is grateful to KITLV, Leiden; ARI, the National University of Singapore; LIPI, Indonesia; and IIAS, Leiden, for their invitation and joint sponsorship of my participation. The pre-eminent ‘stranger’ sayyid The sāda (plural for sayyid) of Hadhrami Arab origin exerted an influence vastly disproportionate to their size as a community in maritime Southeast Asia.1 Whether immigrant or locally born creole (muwallad), they shared an Alawi identity2 based on claims of descendence from the Prophet Muhammad, which set them apart as non-autochthonous and, hence, ‘foreign’. This paper sets out to understand the pre-eminence of the Hadhrami sāda using the conceptual model of Southeast Asia's ‘men of prowess’, coterminous with the more broadly observed phenomenon of ‘stranger’ adventurers and ‘stranger-kings’.3 The status and religious authority of the sāda ideally fitted them to the role of ‘stranger-kings’ to a degree unmatched by other individuals or communities. Their sustained socio-political influence over time was in marked contrast to the sporadic rise and fall of parvenus of other origins. Consider the meteoric rise and fall of the Persian merchant and court favourite, Aqa Muhammad, or the Greek Phrakhlang (minister of trade and foreign affairs) Constantine Phaulkon during the reign of King Narai of Ayutthaya (r. 1656–88).4 The kingdom's Chinese merchant elite did better. A Teochiu who married a Thai rose to be the illustrious ruler Phraya Taksin (r. 1767–82), but at the cost of his Chinese cultural identity.5 Again, in the Netherlands Indies, Dutch administrators in their role as arbiters and adjudicators in conflict resolution resonated with one of the fundamental aspects of the ‘stranger-king’ phenomenon.6 Yet, their lack of indigenous blood ties through marriage – a key feature of ‘stranger-kings’ – sets them apart as aliens. Even the Bugis under-kings (yang di-pertuan muda) of Riau,7 who bore every mark of physical prowess and charisma that distinguished the archetypical ‘stranger-king’ and married into the Malay royal house, were excluded from the sacred role of kingship.8 In contrast, a sayyidi ‘stranger’ who, by marriage, could gain the title of tengku (Malay prince) and a place within the sanctum of Malay power, was a potential ‘stranger-king’. Foreignness, political genius and marriage alliances with the indigenous ruling elite were shared features of immigrant adventurers within the international trading world of Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, exclusive religious status and the inferred cultural and social standing accounted for sāda exceptionalism. It enabled a sayyid of talent and enterprise to seal politically influential marriages so as to emerge as a ‘stranger-king’ with the ambiguous identity of a ‘stranger-kinsman’, simultaneously ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’. The preliminary section of this paper situates the sayyid ‘stranger’ within the context of Southeast Asia's ‘man of prowess’. The discussion then focuses on the high noon of sāda activity in eighteenth-century state-making in the resource nodes of Perak, Siak and Pontianak. The sayyidi status of the respective al-Faradz, al-Syihab and al-Qadiri lineages in these three polities enhanced their credibility, facilitating their access to royal blood lines and interior resources. The broad spectrum of the sayyidi personality, which varied from extemporary piety and

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humanity to extreme violence and despotism, was colourfully refracted through the prism of Southeast Asian state formation. Their discrete response as ‘strangers’ or ‘stranger-kings’ to particular conditions of time and place – whether in the form of resistance or accommodation – made a singular contribution to ‘the last stand’ of indigenous power and prestige preceding the region's transition to colonial rule.9 The ‘stranger’ as ‘man of prowess’ O.W. Wolters has emphasised the pivotal role of the ‘men of prowess’ in early Southeast Asian state formation. These ‘extraordinary persons’ manifested qualities of achievement and leadership based on the cult of Shiva, borne on the wave of Indian religious and cultural influence.10 This externally sourced genius is identifiable with the ‘stranger-king’ phenomenon, which Marshall Sahlins associates with exotic origins, spiritual superiority, physical prowess and charisma, all passports to marriage with indigenous women of rank.11 The metaphor of the powerful cultural broker from afar, following the path of trade to lay the foundations of supra-village leadership and authority, informed the foundation myths of Southeast Asian polities. The origins of first-century Funan, progenitor of the early Southeast Asian state, are encapsulated in the legend of Kaundinya, the Brahman who married a local naga princess, illustrating the synthesis between Indian and indigenous cultures.12 In fact, fundamental features of Southeast Asian rulership privileged the foreign aspirant in a number of ways, especially the prevalence of cognatic kinship over lineage and the function of rulers as spiritual heads and religious teachers.13 In the early modern Islamic period, the foreigner as charismatic dynastic founder is articulated in the hybrid myth of Iskandar Zulkarnain borrowed from the Alexander romance. According to one version, his three sons became rulers respectively of China, Sumatra and Rum (Turkey).14 In the Malay chronicle Sejarah Melayu, Demang Lebar Daun, the founder of the Malay kingdom of Palembang, abdicated in favour of a descendant of Iskandar Zulkarnain who appeared at the sacred mount of Bukit Siguntang Mahameru.15 These myths established a powerful link between the purveyors of Islam from afar and state formation.16 The wali sanga (council of Islamic holy men/saints), precursors of Giri's illustrious ‘priest-kings’ and progenitors of Muslim rule and political culture in Java played a variety of roles as traders, teachers, legalists and warriors.17 According to one tradition, the origin of the wali (14 instead of the widely accepted nine), is traced to Hadhrami genealogical sources.18 Though the validity of this claim has been questioned,19 the sāda are imaged as pioneers in the transmission of Islam also elsewhere in the Archipelago. The Sejarah Melayu associates the arrival of a sayyid, Abd Aziz from Jedda, with Melaka's conversion to Islam in c. 1400.20 The sayyid foreigner is furthermore depicted as harnessing the power of Islam to the interest of ruler and state. During the reign of Sultan Muzafar Syah (d. c. 1459), a sayyid is believed to have saved the city from imminent invasion by a Siamese prince, miraculously killed by a bow shot in distant Melaka.21 In Perak, the saint Sayyid Jamalu'llah al-Hadziri is attested to have introduced the Perak Law Code in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence. Ranked with the royalty, he was buried beside the ruler and his consort. Upholding the family's reputation, his son Sayyid Husayn al-Faradz served as Sultan Muzafar Syah's (r. 1528–49) religious teacher.22 In Aceh, the title of ‘Syeikh al-Islam’, which Sultan Iskandar Thani (r. 1637–41) conferred on the Sufi muwallad from Gujarat, Nur al-Din al-Raniri, acknowledged his theological authority.23 Distant origins and the association of sāda with religious teachers and holy men connected them with spiritually endowed Southeast Asian ‘big men’ who commanded access to power. The association of kingship with magic and the recruitment by rulers of outsiders gifted with shamanistic and spiritual powers to guarantee the efficacy of kingly status were distinctly Southeast Asian traditions.24 Sāda foreigners bearing mystic ‘soul stuff’ married indigenous royalty by virtue of the flexibility of the Southeast Asian concept of cognatic kinship. Such alliances between the wali sanga and local royalty formed the bedrock of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Muslim states of the north coast of Java.25 By the second half of the seventeenth century, indigenous states under the threat of Dutch economic and political ascendance sought fresh sources of spiritually ordained power for revitalising leadership. Contacts with Mecca and hospitality to foreign clerics, jurists, scholars and merchant-predicants at the Malay-Indonesian harbour-capitals expressed a clear religious bias which favoured the sāda. Alawi ulama (singular alim) and awliyā' (saints), some of whom were elevated to the rank of habib, appear to have had a significant role in the political life of Southeast Asia.26 Sayyid and syarif27 were among saints, miracle workers and clerics who developed a compelling attraction among a people seeking new sources of strength and direction in the throes of the economic crisis at the end of the ‘Age of Commerce’.28 In the main theatre of power politics in the Straits of Melaka, the opportunity for leadership was readily seized by ‘outsiders’ of outstanding talent among the newly arrived Hadhrami and Bugis migrants.29 In contrast to the seizure of power by the latter, sāda with their wide influence and spiritual capital were readily recruited by beleaguered local rulers to help shore up the moral and material structures of statehood. The tide of eighteenth-century opportunistic Arab migration was mythologised around the lives of four sāda scholar-adventurers from Hadhramaut. Able to use their ascribed religious status and personal talents, they infiltrated dynastic bloodlines to take centre stage in affairs of state. As J.M. Gullick has pointed out, although it was difficult for a Malay peasant to enter the ruling class, ‘[a]n immigrant adventurer could more easily win acceptance as a member of the ruling class. His claim to aristocratic status in his own country could not easily be checked. A Sumatran sayyid, in particular, could always make a place for himself among the ruling class of a Malay State’. In recognition of their special status, the sāda, in common with the aristocracy, state officials and Islamic clerics, were exempted from kerah or corvée. Moreover, they bore the special mark of distinction as the only community of non-indigenes who were ranked in status with royalty, to whom they were commonly related by

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marriage.30 Perak's ‘stranger-kings’: Religion, magic and authority

Spiritual mentors Perak, a former dependency of Melaka, shared a common ethnogenesis with the rest of the Malay world. Richly endowed with elephants and tin, the mainstay of eighteenth-century trade in the Bay of Bengal, the state reached its apogee under the reign of Sultan Iskandar Syah (r. 1752–65) who wore the proud epithet ‘Zulkarnain’ or the ‘two-horned’.31 Previous vassalage under Aceh, followed by close commercial links with Muslim Coromandel, suggests constant renewal of religious life in Perak, replicated during the era of eighteenth-century Hadhrami migration. During the mid-eighteenth century the religious influence of the al-Faradz represented a countervailing source of internal strength in the face of Bugis challenge and alliance with the ‘infidal’ Dutch. Sultan Iskandar Syah, who co-opted members of the family as religious teachers, ministers and shamans, himself married a daughter of Sayyid Jalaludin, purportedly a fifth-generation descendant of the saint Jamalu'llah and thirtieth from the Prophet. A brother-in-law by the same marriage, Sayyid Abubakar, a favourite of Sultan Iskandar, rose to great prominence. Another brother-in-law, Sayyid Hassan, married the ruler's sister and an issue of this alliance, Raja Syarif Bisnu alias Sultan Muda Bisnu, in turn married a daughter of Sultan Iskandar.32 By means of these marital ties the al-Faradz bloodline irreversibly merged with that of the Perak ruling dynasty. As the only group of ‘outsiders’ acknowledged as equals by the Perak royalty, the al-Faradz soon gained ascendance over the distinguished Megat family of Minangkabau origins.33 As men of intellect and high birth, the sāda ‘strangers’ provided an important counterweight to the power of the traditional chiefs. Thus, Sultan Iskandar appears to have used the al-Faradz for restoring stability following the civil war between Sultan Muhammad and his brother Sultan Muzafar and the consequent rift between hulu (upriver) and hilir (down river) territories.34 When the Bendahara (prime minister and commander-in-chief) from the Megat family was killed during a trip to trap elephants, Sultan Iskandar seized the opportunity to appoint Sayyid Abubakar to fill the vacancy. As the highest ranking minister within the Orang Besar Empat or ‘council-of-four’, the Bendahara managed the personal affairs of the ruler. Viewed probably as an impartial ‘outsider’, he was secretary and administrator of the royal household and was entrusted with the office of revenue collector, receiving in return taxes from the Kinta River.35 Sultan Iskandar also appointed Sayyid Abubakar's brother Sayyid Husayn as Menteri di-Bota (menteri at Bota, Kinta), in the tin-rich Kinta area. As the ruler's trusted servants, the sāda, like counterpart ‘stranger’ communities elsewhere in Southeast Asia, helped steer the state in the direction of economic prosperity. Sayyid Abubakar eventually lost the position of Bendahara only to become Orang Kaya Menteri (minister of standing).36 He was responsible for resolving disputes between princes and chiefs and matters concerning law and custom, tasks the sāda customarily fulfilled. Rights of revenue collection were withheld from the incumbent, possibly as a safeguard against conflict of interest; instead, he received a personal appanage in the form of Cegar Galah. Later inherited by Sayyid Syamsuddin, Sayyid Abubakar's son and successor, Cegar Galah remained with the al-Faradz family.37 Situated north of the capital of Kuala Kangsar, Cegar Galah placed the Arab family within easy reach of Ulu Pelus, a valuable source of elephants, which figured next in importance to tin in Perak's international trade. The association of the al-Faradz with the extraction of hinterland resources was in character with the reputation of the Hadhramis as traders in forest produce since pre-Islamic times.38 The Arab quest for Southeast Asia's natural resources, which originated in the seventh century and peaked around the tenth was given a fresh boost by eighteenth-century Hadhrami trade and immigration.39 Botanical, pharmaceutical and magico-religious knowledge associated with the trade in forest produce – a feature of Arab expertise – gave the sayyidi adventurer a distinct advantage.40 As elsewhere in the region, Perak's ‘stranger’ entrepreneur relied on the quest for upriver forest resources for capital accumulation. The sāda, who unlike the court-bound Malay princes were as much at home exploring the resources of the forest interior as they were conducting state affairs, successfully harnessed indigenous herbal traditions, supernatural beliefs and shamanistic skills to their spiritual status. Deeply rooted in the Malay psyche was the belief in the ability of sāda to drive out pestilence and disease, evoke good fortune and cast spells.41 These qualities ideally fitted a sayyid for the prestigious post of Sultan Muda or state shaman. Wilkinson, who has traced the origin of this office to Melaka, describes the Sultan Muda as a ‘king-coadjutor’ whose duties were entirely in accordance with the magico-religious powers ascribed to ‘strangers’.42 As Wilkinson has put it, ‘Any stranger is credited with greater magic than life-long acquaintances’.43 The office of Sultan Muda, associated with spiritual, herbal and shamanistic powers (ilmu pawang) was conferred by Sultan Iskandar on his nephew and son-in-law, Raja Bisnu, son of Sayyid Hassan.44 As state medicine-man and shaman, Raja Bisnu assumed the title of Sultan Muda Ala'ud-din, who in the image of a spiritually potent ‘stranger’ alleviated sickness within the royal family and annually evoked the guardian genii of the country and blessed the regalia and holy musical instruments. The ‘sorcerer-sultan’ also officiated triennially at a feast conducted in the upriver wilderness, at the al-Faradz base of Cegar Galah. Here the bad spirits were coaxed to board a raft, which was then escorted downstream before it was cut adrift into the sea.45 The title of ‘Sultan Muda’ superseded that of Raja Muda (‘young ruler’, heir to the throne) when the heir apparent was a sayyid, the spiritual and shamanistic attributes of the former potentially augmenting his claims to political succession. A case in point was the nephew and heir presumptive of the childless eleventh ruler, a man of Hadhrami origin from Siak who as

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Sultan Muda subsequently became Sultan Alauddin Mugayat Syah (r. 1720–28).46

Indelible bloodlines The interpenetration of the royal and the sayyidi lineages through marriage remained a central motif of the ‘stranger’ phenomenon in Perak. Among the sāda, those who married into royalty assumed the princely titles of Raja and Tengku while still retaining their sayyidi status. In contrast to marriage on the distaff side restricting the union of syarifah to sayyid, the sāda of the al-Faradz clan employed the freedom of exogamous marriage to penetrate the rival Mandeling Megat clan. Sayyid Mahmud, a grandson of Sayyid Syamsuddin, acquired by marriage to a Megat the prestigious office of Orang Kaya Besar. The post, which combined the duties of royal treasurer, secretary and chamberlain and had originally been held by the Megat, was transferred to the al-Faradz with the endorsement of Sultan Ismail (r. 1871–74), himself of Hadhrami extraction. Sayyid Ja'afar, who subsequently inherited the post, enjoyed the revenue rights in Pecat – again an important elephant area in the hulu – as well as exemption from tolls at the mouth of the Perak River.47 The mid-nineteenth-century civil war in Perak, associated with the rivalry over tin, offered the ideal opportunity for a sayyid to emerge as a full-fledged ‘stranger-king’ in the form of Sultan Ismail, the son of Sayyid Hitam of Siak and Raja Mandak, a daughter of Sultan Ahmaddin (r. 1786–1806). His entry into Perak politics demonstrated the trans-regional receptivity of sāda ‘strangers’ and their socio-political mobility. Raja Ismail gained ‘insider’ status through marriage with a daughter of Sultan Ja'afar (r. 1857–65), qualifying him for the office of Bendahara.48 On the death of Sultan Ali, he usurped the rulership (r. 1871–74) in the tradition of ‘stranger-kings’, superseding the superior claims of the Raja Muda, Raja Abdullah.49 So powerful an influence did Raja Ismail exert that the new British administration's efforts to demote him to the position of Sultan Muda were frustrated by his refusal to surrender the royal regalia for the formal installation of Sultan Abdullah (r. 1874–76). Abdullah's subsequent banishment for his alleged implication in the murder of Resident J.W.W. Birch in November 1875 only returned to centre stage another member of the al-Faradz clan in the form of the British protégé, Raja Yusuf.50 His mother was Raja Perempuan Ngah Aminah, a greatgranddaughter of Sayyid Hassan and Sultan Abdullah Mohammed Syah (r. 1851–57).51 Appointed regent in 1877, Raja Yusuf became Sultan Yusuf Syafuddin Muzzafar Syah (r. 1886–87), bearing testimony to the unquestioned credibility the sayyid ‘stranger’ enjoyed among indigenes. The ‘stranger-kings’ of Siak: Kinship and violence

The centrality of marriage The ‘Alawi way’, transmitted through diasporic genealogical networks, linked the al-Faradz with the al-Syihab in Siak through the marriage of Siti Hitam, a sister of Sayyid Jalalu'd-din, to Sayyid Ibrahim ‘panjang hidung’ (‘long nose’),52 whose son Sayyid Uthman became a prominent figure in Siak politics. In contrast to the al-Faradz who were engaged wholly in civil and spiritual affairs, the Syihab, in common with other Hadhrami ‘strangers’, exploited the prevailing conditions of civil war to harness violence to prowess and kinship — so important in Southeast Asian state making.53 It meant setting aside, like other Hadhrami adventurers in the Indian Ocean, the original sayyidi principle of not bearing arms.54 Within the rapidly changing eighteenth-century political landscape of the Melaka Straits, Johor as the scion of a far-flung Malay empire was the object of conflicting claims and challenges. Following the murder of Sultan Mahmud in 1699, Raja Kecik from the Minangkabau court in Pagaruyung, who claimed to be his posthumous son, made an unsuccessful bid for the throne. This created a rift between Raja Kecik's dataran (riverine and coastal territorial) base in Siak and the kepulauan (the island and maritime) component of the Johor empire. When Raja Kecik died in 1746, the conflict deepened with the long-drawn-out rivalry for succession between his two sons, Raja Mahmud and Raja Alam, who respectively headed rival Malay and Minangkabau factions. Into this epic struggle moved Hadhrami ‘strangers’, representing the undercurrents of a new and powerful force. Attracted by the resources and commercial potential of Siak, Hadhramis of talent and enterprise proved indispensable for the processes of state building. The initial victor, Sultan Mahmud (r. 1746–60), co-opted the support of a certain Sayyid Muhammad Ba Husain, a prominent merchant of the al-Saqqaf family who was ‘much loved by his people’.55 The sayyid, an experienced trader with a shrewd appreciation of inland resources, was appointed Syahbandar at Senapelan, strategically placed to secure the Minangkabau gold and tin trade of Petapahan in defiance of the Dutch.56 Sayyid Muhammad's commercial activities formed part of a growing network of Arab trade in the archipelago.57 Sultan Mahmud also drew on the physical valour and moral rectitude of a charismatic ‘stranger’ in the form of Sayyid Umar, the son of Sayyid Muhammad, popularly known as ‘Tuan Besar’ (chief). When Sultan Mahmud's faction, frustrated by Dutch commercial restrictions, massacred the VOC garrison at Pulau Guntung in 1759, it was Sayyid Umar who performed the heroic act of stabbing the Dutch agent.58 On hand also was Syeikh Salim, a distinguished theologian and a committed opponent of the Dutch who, with ‘a fitting aphorism ever on his lips’, lent spirit to the attacking forces.59 Foremost among the Hadrami ‘strangers’, however, was the Syihab scholar turned trader and warrior, Sayyid Uthman, who helped Raja Alam

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wrest power from Raja Mahmud. According to Alawi genealogical folklore, he was one of the four pioneers from Tarim who headed the eighteenth-century wave of Hadhrami migration to Southeast Asia. Following a period of tutelage under Muhammad ibn Hamid in Malabar, the four sailed east from Calicut and, on reaching the archipelago, fanned out in different directions.60 According to Winstedt's genealogy, however, Sayyid Uthman's father Sayyid Ibrahim was already settled in Siak and, unlike many sayyid who married outside the community, took for his wife Siti Hitam, a woman of equal rank and a sister of Sayyid Jalalu'd-din al Faradz of Perak.61 Sayyid Uthman's standing as a member of a distinguished Alawi family was enhanced by his own experience and knowledge as a trader based in Batu Bahara where Raja Alam had his temporary headquarters. Calculating on the overall importance of the Minangkabau trading community in the political economy of Siak, Sayyid Uthman placed his stakes on Raja Alam's illustrious maternal connections with Pagarruyung. By marrying a daughter of Raja Alam, Tengku Embong Badaria, whose maternal grandfather was the Bugis warrior Daeng Perani, Sayyid Uthman acquired a prominent place within the Malay-Minangkabau-Bugis ruling elite. He was conferred the princely title of ‘Tengku’ and, revered as an Alawi, was popularly known as ‘Tengku Sayyid’.62 From Raja Alam's perspective as well, the alliance with Sayyid Uthman was potentially valuable. Apart from his skills as a warrior, Sayyid Uthman's impeccable credentials as the maternal grandson of Sayyid Jalalu'd-din added credit to Raja Alam's cause. Raja Alam could rely on Sayyid Uthman's loyalty as a son-in-law, as well as his influence as a sayyid, for courting Bugis support against Sultan Mahmud.63

Marauding and political capital Within the trade-oriented environment of maritime Southeast Asia, freebooting was a political affair and an accepted means of resource and power accumulation while simultaneously demonstrating prowess.64 Consider the years preceding Parameswara's founding of Melaka in 1402 when the founder-ruler is alleged to have lived on what his people managed to plunder from enemies. Despite this, he was etched in memory as ‘a great knight and a very warlike man’.65 Similarly, Sayyid Uthman's buccaneering activity had the ring of heroism. The charisma of the ‘stranger’ sayyid raised freebooting to a new level of intensity and violence.66 It earned him popularity with the Anak Raja, the distribution of spoils potentially augmenting the size and strength of his following. As an ‘outsider’ with no legitimate claims to the throne, Sayyid Uthman's display of power and charisma through ruthless acts, imaged as valour, was a necessary means of gaining political validation.67 A shared love of maritime adventure, closely allied with state building, served as a strong bond between Raja Alam and Sayyid Uthman.68 Sayyid Uthman's marauding skills, boosted by British arms and ammunition distributed in Riau, were used to bring to heel political and commercial rivals within the wider arena of the Straits. According to a report of 1760, Sayyid Uthman was sighted off the coast of Selangor, in command of a well-manned fleet comprising six ships, equipped with heavy cannon and rentaka (swivel guns) and well supplied with guns and gunpowder purchased from the British.69 Dutch ships and east Sumatran vessels trading with Melaka were obvious targets of violence that disrupted vital rice supplies to the port.70 Tin-rich Perak, identified as a Dutch ally and a commercial competitor, was also terrorised.71 These acts were inspired by the twin objectives of undermining the Dutch alliance with Raja Mahmud and acquiring goods and captives as booty. Sayyid Uthman's acts of maritime violence, committed both independently and in company with Raja Alam, formed part and parcel of a wider agenda that ultimately brought victory over Raja Mahmud.72 As an ‘outsider’ and a sayyid, customarily acknowledged as adjudicator and diplomat, Sayyid Uthman served as Raja Alam's chief mediator. At the same time, he shared with other Arabs the reputation as ‘good friends and very dangerous enemies’.73 A shrewd military strategist, he contributed to Raja Ismail's defeat in 1761 by feigning friendship with the enemy, only to spy on them.74 Once Raja Alam was installed as ruler, Sayyid Uthman collaborated in the business of territorial and commercial integration, for which his early years of adventurism served him well. A man of talent and charisma, he capitalised on the interlinked activity of trade and marauding to build an extensive network of influence on the commercially prosperous east coast.75 While based at Batu Bahara, he had forged important links with the neighbouring commercial settlements of Asahan and Deli.76 These early connections enabled him to play a key role as Prime Minister and Panglima Besar (military commander), extending Siak's suzerainty from Tamiang in the north to Panei in the south.77 The Panglima Besar's awesome personality and reputation easily won over the compliance of the east coast settlements with Siak's demands for regular tribute and corvée, in addition to assistance with vessels and manpower in times of war.78 Siak's rulers appear to have gained, for the first time, reasonable control over trade along the east coast. Sayyid Uthman's reputation, military skills and political acumen would have proved equally important for Raja Alam's task of integrating the core regions of the Siak and Kampar river valleys and their coastal mashes. To secure trade along the Siak River, the capital was shifted from Mempura to Senapelan (Pekanbaru), closer to the prosperous Minangkabau market town of Patapahan.79 Control established over the adjacent Kampar River centred at Pelalawan gained direct access to the Minangkabau heartland of Lima Puluh. The interior resources of gold and tin complemented the marine wealth of Bukit Batu, overlooking the coastal marshes of the Bengkalis at the heart of Siak's rich fishery and naval and maritime base. Neither the ruler-biased VOC accounts, nor the raja-centred Malay chronicles give due recognition to the crucial role of the ‘stranger’ in Raja Alam's project. However, the core areas of the Siak and Kampar Rivers, tightly administered by the royalty and nobility of which the ‘stranger’ element was an integral part, became ultimately the locus of the Syihab dynasty founded by Sayyid Uthman. Sayyid Uthman remained a key figure in Siak politics under Raja Alam's son and successor, Raja Muhammad Ali Muazzam Syah (r. ?1765–79).80 A ‘stranger-kinsman’ to the last, his interment beside Raja Alam, in the grounds of the royal mosque in Senapelan, was an honour comparable to that accorded to the ‘stranger’ Sayyid Jamalu'llah al-Hadziri in Perak.81

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‘Stranger’ as ‘outsider-insider’ Like his father Sayyid Uthman, Sayyid Ali's political rise was prefaced by prowess displayed as maritime violence. Apart from extending Siak's maritime power in the Straits, Sayyid brought the Syihab to the forefront of political influence by gaining control over internal markets and the flow of goods between coast and interior.82 Apart from the customary exemption of sāda from taxes and tolls, the Syihab as political ‘insiders’ would have had an advantage over other Arab traders in the upriver markets. A letter carried by Sayyid Ali's brother Sayyid Abd al-Rahman to the Dutch in Melaka stated the Siak ruler's decision to transfer the existing privileges of the Chinese gold traders at Patapahan to the Arabs, probably through Syihab leverage.83 Where civil war had failed to resolve the factional conflict in Siak, Sayyid Ali shrewdly accommodated to the formula adopted for peace and reconciliation by his uncle, Raja Muhammad Ali, by means of reinforcing familial ties. The latter's marriage to Raja Mahmud's daughter Tengku Ambang Besar facilitated the restoration of her brother Raja Ismail as Sultan (r. 1779–81). To similarly secure his own position, Sayyid Ali married a daughter of Raja Mohamed Ali, reaffirming Syihab connections with the Minangkabau interior and coastal peripheries (rantau Minangkabau) that crucially underpinned Siak's geopolitics.84 In a corresponding alliance with the rival faction, he also married Tengku Sadia, a daughter of Tengku Musa and grand-daughter of ex-Sultan Raja Mahmud, while his brother Abd al-Rahman married her sister.85 Through a third marriage with Tengku Mandak, a grand-daughter of Raja Haji, Sayyid Ali affirmed connections with the powerful Bugis line at Riau.86 Described by the Dutch Commander J.P. van Braam as a ‘quick-witted and intrepid prince’,87 Sayyid Ali took advantage of the stability at the capital and of Muhammad Ali's political patronage to use piracy as a potent means of resource and power accumulation for enhancing the Syihab political image. More than mere acts of raiding, Sayyid Ali's acts of violence, supported by his brothers Sayyid Abd al-Rahman and Sayyid Alwi (Tengku Lung Putih), were entrenched in a political agenda for containing Dutch influence in Perak and Selangor.88 At one and the same time, using Raja Muhammad Ali's alliance with the VOC for the procurement of arms, Sayyid Ali and the Siak princes attacked and raided vessels in the Straits with the view to undermining the trade of Riau and curbing the independence of dependencies such as Asahan.89 Syihab charisma won the support of a new maritime force in the form of the formidable slave-raiding Iranun of the Sulu Archipelago, strategically based at Retih in east Sumatra. Filling the vacuum left by the enfeebled Orang Laut after the fall of Riau in 1784, the Iranun helped to extend the reach and ferocity of Syihab raids.90 In 1787, Sayyid Ali personally led the raid on Banka for tin and, two years later, used Kedah's grievances against Siam to attack Singgora (present-day Songkhla), returning with a rich booty of gold and silver.91 It was from Bukit Batu that the abortive grand Malay-Iranun alliance against Perak and Penang set sail in 1791, headed by Sayyid Ali's brother-in-law, the Yamtuan Muda (‘young ruler’, junior ruler) Raja Endut.92 The following year, Sayyid Ali participated in Pontianak's assault on Sambas.93 These buccaneering activities reaped rich dividends in opium, tin and arms. Sponsored largely by Tengku Muhammad Ali, they bore the stamp of official sanction but did not fall strictly within the category of ‘privateering’ which, according to the strict Western definition, related to attacks on vessels carrying the flag of a declared enemy.94 On the home front, the ambiguous ‘insider-outsider’ identity of the sayyid, with the simultaneous advantage of closeness and distance, was skilfully used by the Syihab for executing a well-calculated strategy of political consolidation. In 1788, Sayyid Ali gained the governorship of Bukit Batu through the influence of his father-in-law, Tengku Musa.95 The area, which became the springboard for his broader ambitions, paralleled the resource pools appropriated by the sayyidi ‘stranger-kings’ in Perak, Terengganu96 and Pontianak. Sayyid Ali substantially increased his power by using the rich resources of Bukit Batu to build some 30 vessels, in addition to those given by his brother-in-law, Raja Endut.97 Once secure in the core region, Sayyid Ali next set his sights on Pelalawan, the catchment for trade flowing down the adjacent Kampar River. Sensing Sayyid Ali's bid for power, Muhammad Ali proposed transferring to Sayyid Ali his own authority as Raja Tua under the incumbent ruler, Raja Yahya (r. 1781–91). The scheme, which the Yamtuan Nuda Raja Endut found unacceptable,98 evinced the strong bond that still subsisted within the original faction of Raja Mahmud. Its tentative link with the Syihab was irretrievably broken when Raja Muhammad Ali died in 1791. No longer held in check by the Malay political ethos of ‘playing relatives’, Sayyid Ali took on the mantle of the usurper to establish Syihab supremacy as full-blown ‘stranger-kings’.99 He assumed the title of Sultan Abd al-Jalil Syaifuddin (r. 1791–1811) at the new capital of Kota Tinggi (Siak Sri Inderapura), with Sayyid Abd al-Rahman acting as Yamtuan Muda. Pelalawan and Kota Tinggi, backed by maritime power, gave the new Syihab dynasty effective control over a flourishing trade with the interior. Sayyid Abd al-Rahman, who also ruled Pelalawan after driving out Tengku Abdullah, was installed in 1810 as Sultan al-Jalil Syaifuddin of Kampar.100 Sayyid Ali's violation of the succession rights was fully in keeping with the tradition of ‘stranger-kings’, as was his subsequent effort to appropriate aspects of Siak's historical past for the localisation of a dynasty perceived in the Malay world as Arab.101 With the same aim of forging links with Siak's past, the Syihab appropriated and made their own the Syair perang Siak, originally composed for Raja Ismail and cherished by his faction.102 In the conflict between the Minangkabau and Malay factions, Sayyid Ali had placed his bets on the former, with its superior claims for crafting an autonomous state on the Sumatran mainland. At the same time, he acknowledged the reality of Siak's deep-rooted connections with the Malay royal house across the Straits and its indestructible ethos and prestige, despite its political decline. Not surprisingly, therefore, Sultan Mahmud of Riau-Johor was one person who commanded Sayyid Ali's respect and deference.103 The political coup brought successfully to fruition the Syihab claim to the awesome legacy of Raja Alam, but Sayyid Ali saw the wisdom of having the new order legitimised by Sultan Mahmud of Riau, the powerless yet respected scion of the Malay world. The Tuhfat records that in receiving Sayyid Ali at Riau, Sultan

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Mahmud ‘honoured him following the customs for greeting a dependent’. It was on this occasion that Sayyid Ali married Tengku Mandak, reinforcing the old Siak–Johor kinship ties.104 Once again, he was ‘playing relatives’ within a society that was ‘kacukan’, mixed/hybrid and not pure, through the intertwining of ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’.105 The Syihab ‘stranger-kings’ of Siak successfully transformed what the European powers regarded as a ‘pirate state’ into a polity commanding a thriving trade, coveted by the British and Dutch alike. They had long recognised profit from commerce as the means to political power. Kota Tinggi and Pelalawan led the trade with Penang and, later, Singapore.106 Apart from promoting the export of forest produce and terubuk (tenualosa macrura), the Syihab dynasty presided over the proto-industrial production of pearl sago, timber and some of the region's finest gold-threaded cloth (songket).107 Although by the 1820s, Siak's trade was on the decline, the British agent John Anderson considered it still impressive. Some 400 ships based at the capital serviced the export of Minangkabau gambier and coffee to Penang and Singapore.108 On the east coast, Batu Bahara, Bulu Cina and Langkat conducted a brisk trade in pepper and gambier exports to Penang and Singapore.109 Siak's continued survival was contingent upon appropriate adaptation to the changing political dynamic in the region, a fact the Syihab were quick to recognise. Adaptability was for the ‘outsider’ an indispensable tool for localisation and, ultimately, the way to achieving the privileged dual identity of ‘stranger-kinsman’. As Anglo-Dutch cooperation against maritime violence got under way, the Syihab opted to take advantage of new opportunities in the Straits for trade and investment, raising their profile as ‘orang kaya’ (lit. ‘rich men’). Commanding the interdependent forces of power and wealth, the orang kaya of the maritime world, predominantly foreign and cosmopolitan, functioned as mediators of internal-external relations, a role the sayyidi ‘stranger-kinsmen’ ideally fulfilled. Sayyid Ibrahim (r. 1821–27), who succeeded his father Sayyid Ali was a patron of trade. He stirred Siak in the direction of change, exchanging conflict and violence for political stability within the new structure of commerce introduced by the rise of Singapore.110 In 1822, following its 1818 treaty with Major William Farquhar, Siak renewed its 1761 agreement with the Dutch bringing into play the sayyidi genius for political brinkmanship.111 The British unease, represented to the ruler by their agent, James Anderson, was encountered by the consummate diplomacy of a sayyid: ‘Mana bulih buang Janji dangan Orang Engris [!]’ (How can a treaty with the English be broken [!]).112 By confirming the Farquhar agreement, Sultan Ibrahim successfully neutralised his position.113 In 1858, almost a century after the Syihab staked their fortunes on establishing Siak's viability as a state, Sayyid Ismail (r. 1827–64), who succeeded his brother Sayyid Ibrahim, accepted Dutch intervention. Among reforms undertaken by the forward-looking Sultan Syerif Kassim II (r. 1915–45), last in the dynastic line of Siak's ‘stranger-kings’, was a revised version of the manual Babul Qawaid describing the structure of government.114 It evinced the strategy of adaptability Siak's ‘stranger-kings’ had unflinchingly embraced as their passport to success. Symptomatic of the Syihab strategy of accommodation was the reformed Panglima Besar (commander-in-chief) of Siak. The erstwhile daring pirate who had killed so many men ‘that their eyes could fill a [cupak] measure’, settled into a life of comfort and dignity, elegantly attired in gold and silk.115 As successful merchant entrepreneurs, the sāda ‘stranger-kings’ of the new era developed a taste for good living with a weakness for opium consumption, in stark contrast to their pious and abstemious forebears. These features were as much a part of the courtly life of the Syihab in Siak as they were for the al-Qadri in Pontianak. The sumptuous and elegant lifestyle observed by John Anderson on his mission to Siak was representative of the social habits of a new generation of entrepreneurial sāda ‘strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’ who dominated the commercial bridgeheads of the maritime region, adroitly negotiating the interconnected spaces of trade and politics. The accoutrements of good living – fine attire, furniture, books, carpets and carriages – and lavish entertainments marked the superior social standing of the politically ambitious sāda. The urbanity and material wealth, which Sayyid Hussein al-Aidid of Penang best exemplified, facilitated easy mingling with Europeans, whether for private or public business.116 Pontianak's ‘stranger-kings’: Accommodation and collaboration

Man of virtue Hadhrami transformations from ‘strangers’ to ‘stranger-kings’ were played out equally spectacularly in the remote quarters of western Borneo (Kalimantan), again in an area of immense natural resources in the region of the Kapuas and Landak Rivers. The way was led by Husayn al-Qadri, one of the four Alawi scholar-adventurers from Tarim, who followed the directions of his mentor in Malabar to pioneer a settlement amidst the dense forests further eastwards. On arriving in the Malay Archipelago, Husayn, descended from a long line of habib, took on the role of the archetypical peripatetic merchant-predicant. He visited Aceh, Batavia and Samarang along the main commercial route, trading, making influential contacts and enlarging his reputation before arriving in Matam.117 Here, as well as in Mempawah where Habib Husayn finally settled in 1747, he established his pre-eminence as theologian, preacher and lawgiver.118 Daeng Menanbun, the Pangeran Tua who reigned further upriver at Si-Bukit, considered it a rare honour to have in their midst a sayyid and a renowned jurist. The habib, who also earned the respected title of syarif, was assigned a strategic spot near the river mouth. The former pirate hideout gave way to a settlement centred on the mosque, court house and school complex established by the habib. His reputation for justice and the port's low taxes offered a haven of peace where trade and religion fed off each other.119 Having extended the reach of Muslim trade at Mempawah, the habib duly relinquished control to Adi Wijaya when he succeeded his father, Daeng Menanbun, as penambahan (ruler/sovereign).120

Man of muscle and ‘soul-stuff’

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In the typical manner of the ‘stranger’ adventurer, Habib Husayn forged indigenous relations by marrying Nyai Tua, a former slave from Matan by whom he had a son, Abd al-Rahman.121 Born in c. 1742, Abd al-Rahman grew up to be starkly different from his pious father. Faced with the challenge of European ascendance, he pursued an aggressive programme for the accumulation of power through the inter-related activities of trade and marauding. Abd al-Rahman's reputation for prowess, combined with his identity as the son of a respected habib and an indigenous mother, proved impeccable credentials for winning influential marriages. In 1759, he married Candera Midi, sister of the ruler of Mempawah, Pangeran Adi Wijaya. Their father, Daeng Menambun, was a brother of Daeng Marewah, the first Bugis under-king at Riau. Abd al-Rahman freely drew on his Arab and Malay-Bugis connections when roving the seas and coastal waters during the 1760s, mixing trade and marauding. His commercial links with Palembang's large Arab community, as well as with Kutei and Pasir, were backed by a large fleet of armed perahu (native sailing boat) and trading vessels, including a brig and a ketch. Abd al-Rahman's ruthless attacks on trading vessels and his cruel treatment of captives outraged his father, but in a region where historically violence and political influence were indivisible,122 Abd al-Rahman's atrocities enhanced his ‘stranger’ mystique. Sultan Sepu of pepper-rich Banjarmassin gave his daughter in marriage to the young adventurer, raising him to the rank of pangeran. All the same, Abd al-Rahman's ruthless ambition and Machiavellian tendencies soon raised the apprehension of the rulers of both Banjarmassin and Mempawah, whose favour he duly lost.123 Left with no power base, Pangeran Abd al-Rahman set out to carve out a state for himself. Capitalising on his attractiveness as a fearless fighter, he successfully garnered support and, with a 200-strong fleet, sailed in 1771 to take Pontianak. Strategically located at the confluence of the Kapuas and Landak rivers, the place was uninhabited due to its perceived notoriety for sheltering a female ghost that gave the place its name. According to Malay folklore, the pontianak struck terror as she preyed on the lives of children and pregnant women. Drawing on the perceived spiritual and supernatural powers of a sayyid, Abd al-Rahman ostensibly exorcised the ghost. Through a show of extraordinary physical strength and fortitude, he cleared the forest and built a small mosque, which served as a sanctified foundation for the pioneer settlement.124 Under the sayyid's protection, Pontianak resonated with the Hadhrami hawta or sacred enclave, protected from the perils of the surrounding forest. Abd al-Rahman's role as a charismatic ‘stranger-king’ proved critical for state building by way of introducing overall power over the tribal chiefs.125 This process was facilitated by the ‘stranger-king’ formula for localising exotic origins through exogamous marriage alliances. Of all his marriages, that with Utin Candera Midi, the grand-daughter of Daeng Menambun, was pivotal — bringing Pontianak into a grand alliance with the Bugis both at Mempawah and, further afield, at Riau.126 Raja Haji, son of the Daeng Marewah and fourth under-king at Riau, was a cousin of Utin Candera Miti and a strong ally who assisted the ruler in his policy of expansionism. In 1778, the Bugis leader helped Abd al-Rahman defeat Sanggu for the purpose of gaining access to the gold resources of the upper Kapuas.127 Following the victory, Raja Haji installed Abd al-Rahman as ‘Sultan’. The grand investiture, conducted in accordance with the customs of Johor-Riau and witnessed by representatives and princes of subject territories, was analogous to Sayyid Ali's legitimisation at Riau.128 It evinced the common desire shared by the sāda ‘outsiders’ for accommodation within the larger Malay world with Johor-Riau at its epicentre. However, Abd al-Rahman, who like Siak's Sayyid Ali was guided by political expediency, abandoned familial ties with as much ease as he cultivated them. Ignoring Dutch enmity with the Bugis, he sought accommodation with the VOC and its interests in Landak, Borneo's only source of diamonds.129 In 1779, he accepted Dutch vassalage largely with the view to bringing Landal within Pontianak's economic orbit and winning Dutch financial and military support.130 In 1786, Abd al-Rahman again broke ranks with the Bugis when he secured Dutch assistance to capture Mempawah, with his sights on the potential taxes and trade to be accrued from the prosperous Hakka gold mines in upland Mandar.131 A successful outcome saw the installation of his son Syarif Kassim (r. 1808–19) as panembahan but also the ruthless expulsion of the Bugis under-king Raja Ali, son and successor to Raja Haji, who had taken refuge in Mempawah following Riau's fall in 1784.132 Dislodged from Mempawah, Raja Ali fled to Sukadana, which the Dutch soon laid to waste with Pontianak's cooperation.133

End of an era The initiative, charisma and insight Abd al-Rahman displayed in founding Pontianak bore the hallmarks of a ‘stranger-king’ who set the al-Qadiri ruling house high above the rival dynasties of west Borneo. Pontianak's meteoric rise, superseding Sukadana as the foremost power in that part of the island, was undoubtedly the result of Abd al-Rahman's genius. Unscrupulous and irreverent in his youth, he matured into an astute politician, tempering firmness with affability and hospitality.134 A prominent nose and ‘burning’ dark brown eyes stamped his outstanding personality and gave him the appearance of a European. He was described by P.J. Veth as ‘perhaps the most unusual man that Borneo has ever known’.135 His politeness and forbearance in dealing with the tactless and arrogant Dutch representative, Nicolaas Kloek, while at the same time holding his own ground, were a mark of his supreme political craftsmanship.136 Not least was his credibility as a sayyid and a Muslim ruler in his scrupulous abstinence from opium, betel and tobacco and in the protection of his women.137 Illustrating the centrality of religious status in the emergence of the sāda as ‘stranger-kings’ was Abd al-Rahman's unquestioned authority over

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the coastal and maritime Muslim communities, in contrast to his weak influence over non-Muslim communities upriver. Dayak collusion with Chinese kongsis and Bugis traders in the gold and diamond trade left the ruler with ineffective control over interior resource.138 At Mandor, the Chinese were in a sufficiently strong bargaining position to minimise the ruler's gains.139 Pontianak's revenues could meet neither the ruler's personal needs nor the expectations of the VOC, which withdrew its post in 1791.140 Particularly with Dutch support withdrawn and diminishing opportunities for the display of valour through maritime exploits, Pontianak's ‘stranger-king’ sought other means of winning manpower and loyalty among the politically fluid and disparate Bornean people. Converting ascribed spiritual status to political reality to counter the European challenge made heavy claims on resource-based patronage, hospitality and courtly ostentation, to which the ruler's personal vanity succumbed readily. The expensive lifestyle maintained at his sprawling dalam (palace) proved to be Sultan Abd al-Rahman's Achilles heel.141 A large clientele and some 24 wives and their relatives strained his resources and kingly bounty (anugerah), as did his lavish entertainments for Raja Haji's entourage over a 16–17-month sojourn.142 His partiality towards Arab merchants who ran a substantial trade with the interior on preferential terms contributed in no small measure to his financial ills. Importantly, his seeming anxiety to win their loyalty and support betrayed his indelible identity as a ‘stranger’.143 Abd-al Rahman's creation of a deceptively prosperous ‘theatre state’ cast him into mounting debt, which his son and successor Kassim (r. 1809–19) failed to redeem despite his own more modest life style.144 However, through their partial identity as ‘outsiders’ with greater awareness of external realities, the ‘stranger kings’ were better able to adapt to the winds of change than their autochthonous counterparts.

A pragmatist Kassim successfully subverted his father's nomination of his brother as heir apparent, only to inherit the former ruler's huge debts. However, like all sayyid ‘strangers’, Kassim lived by his wits, placing his trust in the efficacy of trade, capital and good inter-personal relations. He saw in expanding Chinese and British private trade, triggered by the founding of Penang (1786), an expanding market for west Borneo's resources from which the royal coffers might well benefit. He cultivated a close friendship with the private trader James Burn to develop commercial investment though, in adherence to Islamic principles, he declared that ‘interest [on credit] was contrary to his religion’. Again manifesting the ‘stranger’ talent for balancing practicality and orthodoxy, he abstained from the consumption of opium but traded in the article, which he received in exchange for gold from James Smith of Carnegy and Co. of Penang.145 Through a major shift in political strategy involving an alliance with the British, Kassim turned to Pontianak's advantage the new commercial opportunities opened up for private trade by the British occupation of Java (1811–16). Responding to Raffles's agenda for commercial expansion in Borneo, he received Burn as political and commercial agent and, two years later, accepted British protection.146 Furthermore, despite his own indirect connections with piracy, Kassim capitalised on Raffles's move against the institution as a means of defeating his arch-enemy, the ruler of Sambas.147 Kassim bore the cosmopolitan stamp of a sayyidi ‘stranger-king’ who was knowledgeable and well travelled, unlike many of his Malay counterparts. Venturing beyond the sphere of Malay influence he had, during a three-year tour of Java, visited various rulers and the Dutch Governor-General himself.148 Bearing the marks of shrewdness, charm and urbanity that characterised the sayyidi ‘stranger-kings’, Kassim was intimately acquainted with European etiquette and social values as they related to rank and influence. As B. Hall noted, recording Sir Samuel Hood's meeting with the Sultan in mid-1814: The Sultan appeared to enter into his guest's character at once, and neither overloaded his attentions, nor failed to treat him as a person to whom much respect was due. I heard Sir Samuel (who had lost his right arm) say afterwards, that he was particularly struck with the Sultan's good breeding, in not offering to assist him in cutting his meat. The sultan merely remarked, that few people were so expert as his guest even with both hands.149 The position of the al-Qadri in Pontianak was compromised by the large non-Muslim Dayak population in the interior, Chinese economic ascendance and regional Malay power at its nadir; but the sayyidi talent for engaging with counterpart ‘strangers’ from the west stood Kassim in good stead. Upon the restoration of Dutch power, Kassim, in his characteristic pragmatism, wrote to the Commissioners-General in Java that ‘he gave thanks to God and the Dutch, that his sometime brotherly friends had again taken possession of the island of Java’.150 Renewed political negotiations that led to the treaty of 1819 were again a testament to the sayyidi genius for adaptability. According to the second article of the treaty: ‘His Highness fully aware of the wholesome benefits to himself, will ally himself strongly and closely with the Dutch government, which had built up its reputation in its Eastern Seas for more than two centuries…’151 Conclusion: An abiding image In a region inherently open to external influences, ascribed religious status set the sāda apart as ‘strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’ extraordinaire. In the case of Sultan Abd al-Rahman, spiritual rehabilitation during his old age saw his vindication as a sayyidi ‘stranger-king’ with a moral public duty. He sought forgiveness from Burn, whom he had earlier defrauded over a commercial transaction and was deeply troubled by his son's violence and cruelty, equal to his own during his youth.152 He considered Kassim – allegedly responsible for the poisoning of his Chinese creditor and the murder of a European trader – unfit to rule and advised him to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca to atone for his sins.153 Violence, which enhanced the mystique of the ‘outsider’, apparently did not pollute Muslim religious virtue, attained through a lifetime of

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adherence to prescribed ritual and followed by atonement and charitable acts in old age. In fact, Sultan Abd al-Rahman, like Sayyid Ali bin Uthman of Siak, found a place within the pantheon of Hadhrami scholars who played a significant role in shaping the religious life of the people around them.154 Notwithstanding his acts of marauding and cruelty during his early career, Abd-al-Rahman was venerated in after-life. His tomb at Batu Layang, built by Kassim through raising public funds, became a pilgrimage site and a focal point on feast days, just like his father's, the Keramat Makam Tuan Besar at Mempawah.155 The culture of Malay royal mausoleums and the indigenous cult of the keramat (a spiritually potent object or person) intersected with the practice of ziarah or visits to the tombs of saints and holy men popular among the Hadhramis.156 Such pilgrimages enfolded ‘strangers’ and kinsmen within the composite temporal and spatial landscape of Malay kingship. At one and the same time, the significance of the graves for genealogical mapping of sāda within the Indian Ocean diaspora symbolised the ambiguous status of the Hadhrami ‘strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’.157 Taking advantage of their trans-regional religious status within the fluid and hybrid Malay world, the sāda remained irretrievably separate, yet indivisibly part of the Malay world. The long association of sayyidi religious influence paved the way for the distinctive role of the eighteenth-century Hadhrami ‘strangers’. Pre-eminent as teachers, spiritual mentors, administrators and men of prowess, some emerged as full-fledged ‘stranger-kings’. Distinctive lineage, personal talent, charisma and an ambiguous ‘outsider-insider’ identity conducive to wide-ranging adaptation contributed to the dynamism of the sayyid ‘stranger-king’, pivotal to eighteenth-century state formation and the non-violent transition of a number of states into the modern era.

Notes 1 The number of persons of Arab origin in the Netherlands Indies almost doubled between the 1805s and 1880s but was estimated at around 20,500 in 1883, with some half resident in Java. See van den Berg, L.W.C., Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes dans l' Archipel indien (Batavia: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1886), pp. 105–9 [Google Scholar]. 2 The eponymous term ‘Alawi’ refers to an ancestor of the Hadhrami sayyid, the grandson of the migrant Ahmad b. Isa, denoting common descent from him. See Ho, Engseng, The graves of Tarim: Genealogy and mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 27–8 [Google Scholar]. 3 Wolters, O.W., History, culture, and region in Southeast Asian perspectives, rev. edn (Ithaca/Singapore: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications/Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999), pp. 112–13 [Google Scholar]; Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, ‘The strangereffect in early modern Asia’, in Shifting communities and identity formation in early modern Asia and Africa, ed. Blusśe, Leonard and Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (Leiden: CNWS, Leiden University, 2003), pp. 80–103 [Google Scholar]; Sahlins, Marshall, ‘The stranger-king or Dumézil among the Fijians’, Journal of Pacific History, 16, 3 (1981): 107–32 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 4 Na Pombejra, Dhiravat, ‘Crown trade and court politics in Ayutthaya during the reign of King Narai (1656–88)’, in The Southeast Asian port and polity: Rise and demise, ed. Kathirithamby-Wells, J. and Villiers, J. (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), pp. 134–5, 138–9 [Google Scholar]. 5 Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘The age of transition: The mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries’, in The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia, ed. Tarling, N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), vol. 1, p. 577 [Google Scholar]. 6 Henley, D., ‘Conflict, justice, and the stranger-king: Indigenous roots of colonial rule in Indonesia and elsewhere’, Modern Asian Studies, 38, 1 (2004): 87, 98–101 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 7 See Ahmad, Raja Ali Haji ibn, The precious gift (Tuhfat al-Nafis), trans. and anno. Matheson, V. and Andaya, B. Watson (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982), Table 2, p. xiv [Google Scholar]. 8 See ibid., Table 2, p. xiv. Jan van der Putten has pointed out the absence of Bugis genealogical links with the sacred Bukit Si-Guntang, the vital prerequisite for ‘Malayness’ and leadership within the Malay polity; van der Putten, Jan, ‘A Malay of Bugis ancestry: Haji Ibrahim's strategies of survival’, in Contesting Malayness: Malay identity across boundaries, ed. Barnard, T.P. (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004), pp. 122–3 [Google Scholar]. 9 See Reid, A., ‘Introduction’, in The last stand of Asian autonomies: Responses to modernity in the diverse states of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1750–1900 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997), p. 10 [Google Scholar]. 10 Wolters, History, culture, and region, pp. 111–12, 164. 11 Sahlins, ‘The stranger-king or Dumézil among the Fijians’, pp. 101–19. 12 Hall, K.R., Maritime trade and state development in early Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), pp. 49–50 [Google Scholar]; K.R. Hall, ‘Economic history of early Southeast Asia’, in ed. Tarling, Cambridge history of Southeast Asia, p. 193. 13 Wolters, History, culture and region, pp. 30–1.

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14 Wilkinson, R.J., ‘Some Malay studies’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society [hereafter JMBRAS), 10, 1 (1932): 75–8 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Winstedt, R.O., ‘The romance of Alexander the Great’, JMBRAS, 16, 2 (1938): 11–23 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘Ahmad Shah ibn Iskandar and the late 17th century “holy war” in Indonesia’, JMBRAS, 43, 1 (1970): 93–4 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 15 Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), trans. C.C. Brown (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 15; Winstedt, R.O., ‘Kingship and enthronement in Malaya’, JMBRAS, 20, 1, (1947): 35 n.1 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 16 Milner, A.C., ‘Islam and the Muslim state’, in Islam in South-East Asia, ed. Hooker, M.B. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983), pp. 38 [Google Scholar], 45. 17 J.G. de Casparis, ‘Religion and popular beliefs of Southeast Asia before c. 1500’, in ed. 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However, in the Malay region ‘syarif’ was used more generally as an honorific for a person of illustrious descent and the head of a prominent family, tribe or religious community. See Hurgronje, C. Snouck, Mecca in the latter part of the nineteenth century (Leiden: Brill, 1970), p. 9 [Google Scholar] n. 1; H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, Shorter encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. 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31 Chula, Raja, Misa Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbitan Pustaka Antara, 1966), p. 52 [Google Scholar]. 32 Winstedt, ‘The Hadramaut saiyids’, p. 53; descended from the al-Faradz family, Raja Bisnu was a sayyid but was evidently conferred the more prestigious title of ‘syarif’; Winstedt, R.O. and Wilkinson, R.J., ‘A history of Perak’, JMBRAS, 12, 1 (1934): 132 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 33 Andaya, Perak, p. 165. 34 Ibid., pp. 73–4. 35 Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, pp. 137–40; Winstedt, ‘The Hadramaut saiyids’, p. 53; Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, p. 143; Andaya, Perak, p. 174. 36 The position of Bendahara was later recovered by another ‘stranger’, Raja Ismail, of sayyidi origin. 37 Winstedt, ‘The Hadramaut saiyids’, p. 53; Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, pp. 82, 136–7, 143. 38 Hitti, P., History of the Arabs: From the earliest times to the present (London: Macmillan, 1964), pp. 36 [Google Scholar], 48–50; Warner, W.H. Lee, ‘Notes on the Hadhramaut’, Geographical Journal, 77 (1931): 217 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 39 Wheatley, P., The golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1961), p. 210 [Google Scholar]; Tibbetts, G.R., ‘Early Muslim traders in Southeast Asia’, JMBRAS, 30, 1 (1957): 13–22 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 40 For example, intimate knowledge of forest resources enabled Sayyid Zin, a pioneer Sumatran entrepreneur, to identify some 16 timber species suitable for shipbuilding; see Anderson, J., Acheen and the ports on the north and east coasts of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 198 [Google Scholar]. 41 Shorter encyclopaedia of Islam, p. 532. 42 Wilkinson, ‘Some Malay studies’, p. 94; Van den Berg, Le Hadhramout, p. 50. 43 Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, p. 135. 44 Andaya, Perak, pp. 34, n. 40, 102, 199; Misa Melayu, pp. 102–3, 219. 45 Wilkinson, ‘Some Malay studies’, pp. 96–7; Winstedt,‘The Hadramaut saiyids’, p. 53. The title of Sultan Muda, often confusingly recorded in genealogies as ‘Sultan’, was later held by Raja Mansur, a brother of Sultan Iskandar, the future Sultan Mansur/Ahmaddin (1792–1806), whose connection with Cegar Galah associated with the al-Faradz, suggests shared shamanistic skills (Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, p. 132). 46 Other sāda associated with the title of Sultan Muda were Raja Ahmad, the son-in-law of Sultan Abd Malik Mansur Syah (1806–25), and Raja Ismail, for whom it was proposed as a consolation prize as part of the British plan to demote him. The elder brother of Sultan Idris (1887–1916) acted as state magician but there is no evidence of his having carried the title of Sultan Muda (ibid., p. 135). 47 Winstedt, ‘The Hadramaut Saiyids’, p. 53; Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, pp. 82, 137, 143; Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, pp. 141, 145. In 1862, however, the sāda lost the title of Orang Kaya Besar to Ngah Ibrahim, the de facto ruler of Larut and a descendant of the original holder of the office, Sri Nara di-Raja. 48 Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, pp. 140, 144; Kim, Khoo Kay, ‘The Perak sultanate: Ancient and modern’, JMBRAS, 59, 1 (1986): 8 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 49 Sahlins, ‘The stranger-king or Dumézil among the Fijians’, p. 113; Sadka, E., The protected Malay states, 1874–1985 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1968), p. 33 [Google Scholar] n. 1. Contrary to custom, on Sultan Ja'afar's death, Ismail as Bendahara was not promoted to the office of Raja Muda, vacated by the previous incumbent who became Sultan Ali al-Mukammal (1865–71). Instead, Sultan Ja'afar's son, Raja Abdullah, rose to be Raja Muda, a transgression matched by Raja Ismail's usurpation. Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, p. 136; Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, p. 140; Gullick, Indigenous systems, p. 62. 50 Sadka, The protected Malay states, pp. 33 n. 1, 88 n. 3; Khoo, ‘The Perak sultanate’, pp. 12–16. 51 ‘The Hadramaut saiyids’, p. 53; Winstedt and Wilkinson, ‘A history of Perak’, p. 132. 52 A Dutch account similarly describes Sayyid Abd al-Rahman of Pontianak as having a distinctly long nose. 53 Wolters, History, culture, and region, pp. 6–9; F. Fernández-Armesto, ‘The stranger effect in early modern Asia’, pp. 81–91.

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54 Warner, ‘Notes on the Hadhramaut’, p. 218. For sayyidi political and military activities in Kerala in the eighteenth century and their leadership of the modernised Hyderabad state forces, see Omar Khalidi, ‘The Hadhrami role in the politics and society of colonial India, 1750s–1950’, and Stephen Dale, ‘The Hadhrami diaspora in south-western India: The role of the sayyid of the Malabar coast’, in Hadhrami traders, ed. Ulrike Freitag and William G. Clarence-Smith, pp. 78–80 and 177–9 respectively. In the Hadramaut, some sāda took up arms against Wahabi incursions. As Freitag has observed, ‘[T]he widespread assumption that the sayyids collectively renounced the bearing of arms after being introduced to Sufism [by Muhammad b. Ali al Alawi, d. 1155] ought to be considered more a moral standard than the historical reality’. Freitag, U., Indian Ocean migrations and state formation in Hadhramaut (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 42 [Google Scholar], 91, 128–9. 55 Harrison, B., ‘Malacca in the eighteenth century: Two Dutch Governors’ reports', JMBRAS, 27, 1 (1954): 29 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 56 The Dutch commercial claims and restrictions were based on Johor's ‘gift’ of Siak to the VOC in 1746, disputed by Siak's de facto rulers. See Lewis, D., Jan Compagnie in the Straits of Malacca, 1641–1795 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Centre for International Studies, 1995), pp. 69–71 [Google Scholar], 83–4; Harrison, ‘Malacca in the eighteenth century’, p. 32; Barnard, T.P., Multiple centres of authority: Society and environment in Siak and eastern Sumatra, 1674–1827 (Leiden: KITLV, 2003), pp. 89 [Google Scholar], 102; Tuhfat al-Nafis, p. 364, n. 4. 57 B.W. Andaya, ‘Adopting to political and economic change: Palembang in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’, in ed. Reid, Last stand of Asian autonomies, pp. 197, 207; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Siak and its changing strategies for survival, c. 1700–1870’, in the same volume, Tables 9.1 and 9.2, pp. 229–30; A. Reid, ‘A new phase of commercial expansion in Southeast Asia, 1760–1850’, in the same volume, Table 3.1, p. 63; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 89– 90, 101–2; Knaap, G.J., Shallow waters, rising tide: Shipping and trade in Java around 1775 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996), pp. 65–7 [Google Scholar], 83–4, Appendix 8, pp. 208–9. 58 Vos, R., Gentle Janus, merchant prince: The VOC and the tightrope of diplomacy in the Malay world, 1740–1800, trans. Jackson, B. (Leiden, KITLV: 1993), p. 112 [Google Scholar]; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 102. Sayyid Umar later married a daughter of Raja Ismail, the son of Raja Mahmud (Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 138). 59 Tuhfat, p. 97; Syair perang Siak, ed. and trans. D.J. Goudie (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1989), p. 145. 60 Ho, Engseng, ‘Before parochialization: Diasporic Arabs cast in creole waters’, in Transcending borders: Arabs, politics, trade and Islam in Southeast Asia, ed. de Jong, H. and Kaptein, N. (Leiden: KITLV, 2002), p. 22 [Google Scholar]; Ho, The graves of Tarim, pp. 162–3. According to Hadhrami folklore, the other three eighteenth-century Alawi teachers from Tarim settled in various parts of the archipelago: Sayyid Aydarus Abd al-Rahman al-Aydarus founded a settlement in Kubu, southwestern Borneo, and later settled in Aceh; Sayyid Uthman in Siak; and Muhammad ibn Ahmad in Terengganu (Ho, The graves of Tarim, pp. 162–3); however, the al-Quadri history cites not Sayyid Uthman but Sayyid Umar as the young adventurer who went to Siak; see Netscher, E., ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris met eene vertaling door E. Netscher’, TBG, 4 (1855): 287 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 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Goudie (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1989), pp. 36, 136, 139 n. 234c. 63 Netscher, E., De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak 1602 tot 1865 (Batavia: Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (hereafter VBG), 35, (1879): 96, 103 [Google Scholar]. 64 For a recent assessment of Western perceptions of piracy in Southeast Asia, see à Campo, J.N.F.M., ‘Discourse without discussion: Representations of piracy in colonial Indonesia, 1816–25’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34, 2 (2003): 199–215 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 65 Wolters, O.W., The fall of Srivijaya in Malay history (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 79 [Google Scholar], 117–18; Tarling, N., Piracy and politics in the Malay world (Singapore: Donald Moore Gallery, 1963), pp. 40–1 [Google Scholar]. 66 Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 94. 67 Wolters, History, culture, and region, p. 164; Day, A., Fluid iron: State formation in Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), pp. 229–30 [Google Scholar]. 68 The Tuhfat gives a detailed description of Raja Alam's impressive military base with well-armed vessels at Siantan where in 1748 he successfully repulsed Sultan Sulaiman's forces. Subsequently dislodged from Siantan by the Daeng Kamboja, he turned to marauding (Tuhfat, pp. 97–100; Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 76). 69 Andaya, Perak, p. 218.

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70 Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 94. 71 Andaya, Perak, pp. 218, 220–1, 228. 72 Between 1746 and 1755 alone, control over Siak changed hands no less than five times. Goudie, ‘What the text said to its audience’, Syair perang Siak, p. 51. 73 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 96; Francis Light, quoted in Andaya, B. and Andaya, L., A history of Malaysia, 2nd edn (London: Palgrave, 2001), p. 92 [Google Scholar]. 74 Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 99; Syair perang Siak, pp. 55, 66, 163 vs. 332–3. 75 Said, Tungku, Hikayat Siak, trans. Hashim, Muhammed Yusoff (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1992), p. 188 [Google Scholar]. 76 Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, pp. 76, 110, 131; Tuhfat, pp. 87, 102, 107, 108, 109, 124; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 116–20. 77 Goudie, ‘The people of the text and those off stage’, Syair perang Siak, p. 45. 78 Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, pp. 141–3. 79 Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Siak and its changing strategies for survival’, p. 225; Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘The long eighteenth century and the new Age of Commerce in the Melaka Straits’, in On the eighteenth century as a category of Asian history, ed. Blussé, L. and Gaastra, F. (Ashgate, Aldershot: 1998), p. 68 [Google Scholar]. 80 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 124. Tengku Muhammad Ali was installed as Sultan following the death of Raja Alam (Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 133) but the Syair perang Siak does not acknowledge this. The reason, explains Goudie, ‘is that the syair is a statement of the claim of Raja Ismail to succeed Raja Alam. Any acknowledgement of Tengku Muhammad Ali as a primary legitimate successor to Raja Alam would undermine the central purpose of the text’ (Goudie, ‘The people of the text and those off stage’, pp. 38, 39). 81 Syair perang Siak, p. 133; Hikayat Siak, 1992, pp. 197–8; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 158. 82 For an elaboration of this concept, see Andaya, B.W., ‘Recreating a vision: Dataran and kepulauan in historical context’, in ‘Riau in transition’, ed. Chou, C. and Derk, W., BKI, 153 (1997), pp. 483–4 [Google Scholar]. 83 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 139–40. 84 Tuhfat, p. 166. 85 Ibid., pp. 188, 191, 373 f. 526 n. 1. 86 Goudie, ‘The people of the text and those off stage’, p. 36; Tuhfat, p. 211. 87 Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 175. 88 Andaya, Perak, pp. 341–2, 370–1; Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 175; Tuhfat, p. 369, f. 242 n. 2; ARA (Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague): VOC 3702, Secret, Report by C.G. Baumgarten in P.G. de Bruyn to Batavia, 9 May 1784. 89 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 152, 155; VOC 3734: letter to the king of Siak, 17 June 1786, 2 Aug. 1786; VOC 3703: No. 10, letter from Riau, 17 May 1786; VOC 3907: A. Coupers to Raja Mohd. Ali, 27 Apr. 1789. 90 Illanun collaboration with the Syihab ‘stranger-kings’ – as indeed with the counterpart Arab syarif of Sulu – contrasted with their volatile relations with Sultan Mahmud of Riau and the displaced ex-Sultan Yahaya of Siak. See J.F. Warren, The Sulu zone, 1769–1898 (Singapore: Singapore University Press), pp. 78–9, 153–7; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, 161. 91 Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, pp. 193–4; Tuhfat, pp. 188–9; Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 158. The marriage of Sayyid Ali's brother, Sayyid Alwi (Tengku Lung Putih), to a sister of the Sultan Ahmad Tajud'din of Kedah formed the basis of the Kedah-Siak alliance. See Bonney, R., Kedah, 1771–1821 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 118 [Google Scholar], 144–5; Tarling, Piracy and politics, pp. 27–8. The son of Tengku Lung Putih, Tengku (Sayyid) Ahmad Tajuddin alias Tengku Kudin, was to play a major role in Kedah's conflicts with Siam; Othman, Muhammad Isa, Politik tradisional: Kedah 1681–1942 (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1990), pp. 30–1 [Google Scholar]. 92 Bonney, Kedah, pp. 90–1; Andaya, Perak, pp. 375–6; Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 158; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 155.

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93 Hikayat Siak, pp. 190–6; Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 301; Willer, J.T., ‘Eerste proeve eener kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, Tijdschrift voor taal-, land- en volkenkunde van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, (hereafter TBG), 3 (1855): 553 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 94 Risso, P., ‘Cross-cultural perceptions of piracy: Maritime violence in the western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region during a long eighteenth century’, Journal of World History, 12, 2 (2001): 195 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 95 Bukit Batu, traditionally the appanage of the Laksamana (admiral), stretched from Tanjung Senebui, off Rokan, to Tanjung Balai, fringing the Riau-Lingga Archipelago and including the islands of Rupat and Bengkalis. 96 Goudie, ‘The people of the text and those off stage’, p. 40; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 152. In Terengganu, the influential al-Idrus family was founded by the revered mystic and theologian Sayyid Abd al- Rahman al-Idrus, popularly known as To' ‘Ku Paloh. His son Sayyid al-Saqqaf was the archetypical holyman (keramat)-cum-merchant whose influence in Ulu Terengganu was evidently tied up with his business activities, including money-lending. See Sutherland, H., ‘The taming of the Trengganu elite’, in Southeast Asian Transitions: Approaches through social history, ed. McVey, R.T. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 71–3 [Google Scholar], 77–8. 97 Tuhfat, p. 188; Syair perang Siak, p. 40. 98 Hikayat Siak, p. 197. 99 Quoting the Hikayat Hang Tuah, Hank Maier interprets ‘we are playing relatives’ as ‘the desirability to trust “others” as if they were relatives, the drive to mix and assimilate with “others”’; Maier, H.M., ‘“We are playing relatives”: Riau, the cradle of reality and hybridity’, BKI, 153 (1997): 672–6 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. For an account of the events leading to the transfer of power, see Tuhfat, pp. 206–10; Goudie, ‘The people of the text and those off stage’, p. 44; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 160. 100 Goudie, ‘The people of the text and those off stage’, pp. 40–1; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 167. 101 Tuhfat, p. 210; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 162. 102 Goudie, ‘Events which maintained the text into the nineteenth century’, Syair perang Siak, p. 31; Effendy, ‘Sedikit catatan tentang: “syair perang Siak”’, Syair perang Siak, p. 263. 103 Tuhfat, p. 189; Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 193. 104 Tuhfat, pp. 210–11. 105 See Mair, ‘We are playing relatives’, pp. 675–7. The fluidity, hybridity and inclusiveness associated with kinship and identity was at the heart of Malayness, its very ambivalence making room for the sāda ‘stranger-kings’ as ‘others’. 106 Dobbin, C., Islamic revivalism in a changing economy: Central Sumatra, 1784–1847 (London: Curzon, 1983), pp. 47 [Google Scholar], 93–4. 107 Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Siak and its changing strategies for survival’, pp. 236–7; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 164–5. 108 Anderson, J., Mission to the east coast of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 320–2 [Google Scholar]; Dobbin, Islamic revivalism, pp. 93–5, 104–6. 109 Anderson, Acheen, pp. 190–4; Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘The long eighteenth century’, p. 68. 110 Anderson, Mission to the east coast of Sumatra, pp. 176, 320–1, 349, 352–3; Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Siak and its changing strategies for survival’, pp. 229–30. 111 See Nicholas Tarling, ‘Introduction’, in Anderson, Mission to the east coast of Sumatra, pp. v–vi. 112 Anderson, Mission to the east coast of Sumatra, p. 165. 113 See Tarling, ‘Introduction’, in ibid., pp. iv–ix. 114 Barnard, T., ‘Local heroes and national consciousness: The politics of historiography in Riau’, BKI, 153 (1997): 516 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 115 Anderson, Mission to the east coast of Sumatra, pp. 172, 186–7. 116 Anderson, Mission to the east coast of Sumatra, pp. 165, 167–8, 173–7, 182–5, 320–1, 349, 352–3; Hall, B., Fragments of voyages and travels, 3rd series, no.2 (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1833), pp. 284–9 [Google Scholar]; Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘The long eighteenth century’, p.

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75; Clodd, H.P., Malaya's first pioneer: The life of Francis Light (London: Luzac, 1948), pp. 119–21 [Google Scholar]; Wurtzburg, C.E., Raffles of the eastern isles (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954), pp. 49–50 [Google Scholar]. 117 Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 288–93. 118 J. Burns, ‘Mr Burn's account of Pontianak’, 12 Feb. and 12 Mar. 1811, India Office Records, Private Papers, Raffles Collection, XI, MSS Eur. E109, British Library, London, p. 39. Part of Burn's ‘Account’ is published in Reece, B. and Smith, F.A., ‘Joseph Burn and Raffles's plan for a British Borneo’, Borneo research bulletin, 37 (2006): 33–47 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 119 Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Mashhūr, quoted in Ho, The graves of Tarim, pp. 169–70. 120 Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 290–5; Willer, J.T., ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, TBG, 3 (1855): 518 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 121 According to an Arab account by al-Mashhūr and contrary to Dutch sources, the woman from Matan who was Abd al-Rahman's mother was not a slave but a daughter of the ruler of Matan. See Ho, The graves of Tarim, p. 170; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, p. 517. 122 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 41–3; Day, Fluid iron, pp. 228–32. 123 Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, pp. 517, 520–2; Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 297–8; Tuhfat, pp. 140, 357 f. 189 n. 2. 124 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 43–4; Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 98–9; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, pp. 522–5; van Goor, J., ‘Seapower, trade and state-formation: Pontianak and the Dutch’, in Trading companies in Asia, 1600–1800, ed. van Goor, J. (Utrecht: HES Uitgevers, 1986), pp. 92–4 [Google Scholar]. 125 Van Goor, ‘Seapower, trade and state-formation’, p. 92. 126 Tuhfat, p. 29. 127 The al-Qadri family history, contradicting the Taufat's account, claims that Pangeran Abd al-Rahman scored victory before the arrival of Raja Haji. Whatever the truth, relations between Abd al-Rahman and Raja Haji remained close. See Tuhfat, p. 362 F 209 n. 4; Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 299–300. 128 Tuhfat, pp. 154–7; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, pp. 527–8. 129 Landak, seized by Banten from Sukadana in 1771, was subsequently relinquished to the VOC. Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, pp. 525–6; Heidhues, M. Somers, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, Archipel, 56 (1998): 277 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 130 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 45–7; See Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, p. 528; Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, p. 301. 131 Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 301–2; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, pp. 524, 528–9, 534–40, 558; Heidhues, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, p. 287; van Goor, ‘Seapower, trade and state-formation’, pp. 97–100. 132 Netscher, ‘Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris’, pp. 301–2; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, pp. 524, 528–9, 534–40, 558; Heidhues, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, p. 287; van Goor, ‘Seapower, trade and state-formation’, pp. 97–100. 133 Tuhfat, p. 195; Burn, ‘Report’, f. 48; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, p. 533. 134 Heidhues, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, pp. 279–80. 135 Veth, P.J., Borneo's wester-afdeeling geographische, statistisch, historisch, voorafgegaan door eene algemeen schets des ganschen eilands (Zaltbommel: Noman, 1854), vol. 1, p. 251 [Google Scholar]. 136 van Goor, J., ‘A madman in the city of ghosts: Nicolaas Kloek in Pontianak’, Itinerario, 11 (1985): 291–310 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Heidhues, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, pp. 282–3, 285. 137 Ibid., pp. 277, 281. 138 Ibid., pp. 275–6; 287–8; Heidhues, M. Somers, Golddiggers, farmers, and traders in the ‘Chinese districts’ of west Kalimantan, Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 2003), p. 53 [Google Scholar]. Even after the withdrawal of the VOC, which had allowed the ruler a small share of the taxes, he was unable to derive the full benefits of a rich and populous hinterland with an estimated 60,000 inhabitants and effectively under autonomous or semi-autonomous tribal heads and rajas. See Smith, ‘Captain Burn and associates, p. 59; Smith, F.A., ‘Missionaries, mariners,

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and merchants: overlooked British travellers to west Borneo in the early nineteenth century’, Borneo Research Bulletin, 33 (2002): 45–61 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Heidhues, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, pp. 287–8; Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 41, 107. 139 M. Somers Heidhues, ‘Nanyang Chinese heroes in Malay histories: Now you see them, now you don't’, forthcoming in series published by the Department of Afro-Asian Studies, University of Hamburg. 140 Veth, Borneo's wester-afdeeling, vol. 2, p. 282. 141 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 44–5. 142 Tuhfat, pp. 157–8. 143 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 47, 54, 62; Smith, F.A., ‘Captain Burn and associates: British intelligence gathering, trade, and litigation in Borneo and beyond during the early nineteenth century’, Borneo research bulletin, 35 (2004): 59 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Willer, ‘Kronijk van Mampawa en Pontianak’, p. 525; Heidhues, ‘The first two sultanates of Pontianak’, p. 285. 144 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 61–3. 145 For more on Kassim's dealings with James Smith and other private traders, see F.A. Smith, ‘Hardships in country trade on the East Indies in the early nineteenth century: Seven years in the life of Captain Daniel Smith, unpublished paper presented at the International Congress of Asian Studies, Kuala Lumpur, Aug. 2007. 146 Burn's position, evidently, was temporary. He appears to have left Pontianak by mid-1812 and was replaced by John Hunt when the formal treaty with Pontianak was signed in 1813. See Smith, ‘Captain Burn and associates’, p. 60; Irwin, G., Nineteenth century Borneo: A study in diplomatic rivalry (Singapore: Donald Moore, 1965), pp. 25–6 [Google Scholar]; Reece and Smith, ‘Joseph Burn and Raffles's plan for a British Borneo’, p. 29; Gallop, A.T., The legacy of the Malay letter: Warisan warkah Melayu (London: The British Library, 1994), pp. 214–15 [Google Scholar]. 147 Irwin, Nineteenth century Borneo, pp. 26–8; Tarling, ‘Piracy and politics’, p. 15; Wright, H.R.C., East Indian economic problems of the age of Cornwallis and Raffles (London: Luzac, 1961), p. 280 [Google Scholar]. 148 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 99–100. 149 Hall, Fragments of voyages and travels, p. 288. 150 Irwin, Nineteenth century Borneo, pp. 23–6, 50. 151 Quoted in van Goor, ‘Seapower, trade and state-formation’, pp. 85–6. 152 The ruler appropriated without payment a cargo of textiles, rice, iron and steel which Burn had jointly invested in with Parry, Lane and Co. of Penang and left for sale in Pontianak. See Smith, ‘Captain Burn and associates’, pp. 51, 53. 153 Burn, ‘Account’, pp. 56–60. 154 Riddell, P.G., ‘Arab migrants and Islamization in the Malay world during the colonial period’, Indonesia and the Malay World, 84 (2001): 122 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. 155 Burn, ‘Account’, p. 53; Borneo's wester-afdeeling, vol. 1, pp. 14–15, 255. 156 Riddell, ‘Arab migrants’, p. 114. The institution of ziarah derived from the worship of founders of sacred enclaves (hawta, pl. hawat) (Freitag, Indian Ocean migrations, p. 42). 157 Ho, The graves of Tarim, pp. 152–4, 168–73.

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