The Pahang Sultanate (Malay: Kesultanan Pahang, Jawi: ) also referred as the Old Pahang Sultanate, as opposed to the modern Pahang Sultanate, was a Malay Muslim state established in the eastern Malay Peninsula in the 15th century. At the height of its influence, the sultanate was an important power in Southeast Asia and controlled the entire Pahang basin, bordering the Pattani Sultanate to the north and the Johor Sultanate to the south. To the west, its jurisdiction extended over parts of modern-day Selangor and Negeri Sembilan.
The sultanate has its origin as a vassal of Melaka, with its first sultan being a Malaccan prince, Muhammad Shah, himself the grandson of Dewa Sura, the last pre-Malaccan ruler of Pahang. Over the years, Pahang grew independent from Malaccan control and at one point even established itself as a rival state to Malacca until the latter's demise in 1511. During this period, Pahang was heavily involved in attempts to rid the peninsula of the various foreign imperial powers; Portugal, the Netherlands and Aceh. After a period of Acehnese raids in the early 17th century, Pahang entered into the amalgamation with the successor of Melaka, Johor, when its 14th sultan, Abdul Jalil Shah III, was crowned the 7th Sultan of Johor. After a period of union with Johor, it was eventually revived as a modern sovereign Sultanate in the late 19th century by the Bendahara dynasty.
Origin Melakan conquest of Pahang Muzaffar Shah, the 5th Sultan of Melaka who reigned from 1445 to 1458 refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of Ligor over his country. The Ligorians, in assertion of their claim, sent an invading army led by Awi Chakri, overland to Melaka. The invaders, who were aided by auxiliaries from the Pahang Kingdom, followed the old route by the Tembeling, Pahang and Bera rivers. They were easily defeated and fled back by the same route. Subsequently, they attempted a naval invasion, and were again beaten. Muzaffar Shah then conceived the idea of checking Ligorian pretensions by attacking the Ligor vassal state, Pahang. An expedition was organised by Muzaffar's son, Raja Abdullah and was personally led by the Melakan Bendahara Tun Perak with two hundred ships, proceeded to Pahang and conquered it in 1454. The last ruler of the kingdom, Dewa Sura was captured and carried together with his daughter Putri Wanang Seri to Melaka.
The Sultan of Melaka appointed Sri Bija Diraja Tun Hamzah, the commander of the army in the conquest, as the governor of Pahang, and permitted him the privilege, once he was out of Melakan waters, of using six of the eight instruments that made up nobat band, and of having a pair of fringed umbrellas borne over him. Sri Bija Diraja accordingly proceeded to Pahang which he governed for several years. Once a year he visited Melaka to show respect to his sovereign.
In the year that Pahang was conquered, Raja Abdullah married Putri Wanang Seri, the daughter of Dewa Sura, whose name had been changed Putri Lela Wangsa, probably on conversion to Islam. By her he had two sons Raja Ahmad and Raja Muhammad.
The Sepak Raga incident Muzaffar Shah died around 1458 and was succeeded by Raja Abdullah who was styled Sultan Mansur Shah. As his sons grew up, the new ruler paid special favour to Raja Muhammad and designated him as his successor. When Raja Muhammad was about fifteen years old he was riding past a group of boys who were engaged in a sepak raga game, when a misdirected ball kicked by Tun Besar, the Bendahara's son displaced Muhammad's headdress. In a rage he drew his kris and killed Tun Besar.
The Bendahara's people flew to arms to avenge Tun Besar's death, but were restrained by the Bendahara who warned them against any measures that might be construed as treason against the Sultan. However, the Bendahara and his people vowed that the Raja Muhammad should never rule over them. Sultan Mansur, after hearing their complaint, agreed that Raja Muhammad should be exiled from Melaka. He recalled Sri Bija Diraja from Pahang and commanded him to escort Muhammad to that country and install him as their Sultan.
History Founding Accompanied by Tun Hamzah who was appointed Bendahara for the new kingdom, Seri Akar Raja as his Hulubalang, a Penghulu Bendahari, a Temenggung, and a hundred youths and a hundred maidens of noble family, Raja Muhammad proceeded to Pahang where he was installed as sultan around 1470 with the title Sultan Muhammad Shah. The boundaries of his kingdom extended from Sedili Besar to the south up to border with Terengganu to the north. The first Melakan ruler of Pahang, appears to have settled at Tanjung Langgar in Pekan, the old seat of the pre-Melakan rulers.
The events of this period are obscure. There is reason to believe that Raja Ahmad, the elder brother of the newly appointed Sultan of Pahang, who had also been passed over for the succession to the Melaka throne, as a consolation was installed heir to the Pahang Sultanate by his father in Melaka and proceeded to the country between the 1470 and 1475.
On 17 September 1475, Sultan Muhammad Shah died and was buried at Langgar on the Pahang Tua. The inscription on his tomb gives his name, descent and the date of his death. According to the commentaries of Afonso de Albuquerque, Sultan Mansur of Melaka had, by a daughter of the king of Pahang, a son who was poisoned. It is likely that this conjecture was in reference to Sultan Muhammad.
Early period The 17th century Bustan al Salatin records that Muhammad was succeeded by his elder brother Raja Ahmad who took the title Sultan Ahmad Shah. He married a daughter of Tun Hamzah and by her he had a son Raja Mansur. The new ruler had been passed over for the succession to the Melaka throne twice, first by his younger brother Muhammad, and second by a younger half-brother Raja Hussain, who with the title Sultan Alauddin, succeeded his father Sultan Mansur in 1477. As a result, relations between Pahang and Melaka deteriorated greatly during his reign.
Shortly after his accession, he ordered the killing of Tun Telanai, the hereditary chief of neighbouring Terengganu, as he had visited Melaka without his knowledge and paid obeisance to Sultan Alauddin. In 1488, Sultan Alauddin of Melaka died at Pagoh on the Muar River after being poisoned, it was claimed that the rulers of Pahang and Indragiri were responsible. The ruler of Inderagiri suggested that Raja Merlang, who had married Alauddin's half sister Raja Bakal and settled in Melaka, was behind the poisoning.
Sultan Alauddin was succeeded by his son Sultan Mahmud with whom his royal uncle of Pahang continued to quarrel with. The Malay Annals tell a story of Tun Teja, a daughter of a Bendahara of Pahang who was famed for her beauty and betrothed to the Pahang Sultan. A Melakan envoy to Pahang, on his return to his country, spread the fame of Tun Teja's beauty. Sultan Mahmud, enamoured of the picture of Tun Teja that had been presented to him by his chief, promised any reward, however great, to the man who would abduct the Pahang girl and bring her to Melaka. Tun Teja was won over by the Melakan Laksamana and was taken to Melaka. The Sultan of Pahang, enraged and humiliated, prepared to declare war on Melaka but was later calmed down by his chiefs.
The insults put upon the Sultan and his inability to avenge them brought him into disgrace with his people, and made his position untenable. The events took place around 1494. The Malay Annals records that Abdul Jamil was the Pahang ruler concerned, but historians such as Linehan and Khoo suggested the events occurred during the reign of his uncle, Sultan Ahmad. Sultan Abdul Jamil abdicated in favour of his young son Raja Mansur who assumed the title Sultan Mansur Shah. The new Sultan was placed under the guardianship of his uncles, sons of the first sultan. In describing Abdul Jamil's life after the abdication, the Malay Annals noted: "his highness went upstream for so long as the royal drums could be heard; when he came to Lubuk Pelang there he resided, and the sound of the drums was no longer heard. He went into religious seclusion; he it is whom people call Marhum Syeikh.
Between 1488 and 1493, Raja Fatimah, a royal daughter of Alauddin of Melaka and a full sister of Sultan Mahmud, had married a Pahang prince. The annals state that her husband was Abdul Jamil. She died, childless, on 7 July 1495 and was buried at Pekan Lama in a graveyard known as Ziarat Raja Raden. After Abdul Jamil's abdication, it appears that Abdul Jalil, the eldest son of the first ruler under the style of Sultan Abdul Jalil, reigned jointly with Abdul Jamil's son, Sultan Mansur. The prince was younger, and Jamil and his brothers seem to have exercised some measure of guardianship over him in the early years of his reign. The period saw the restoration of ties between Pahang and Melaka.
Middle period
In 1500, the ruler of the Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom, known in Malay tradition as Ligor, invaded Pahang through Kelantan and the Tembeling with a large army, on the instructions of the King of Ayutthaya. The common threat made the people of Pahang ignore their squabbles with Melaka. Sultan Mahmud sent a Melakan army, under Bendahara Seri Maharaja to help Pahang. Among the leaders of the expedition were Laksamana Khoja Hassan and the Hulubalang Sang Setia, Sang Naya, Sang Guna, Sang Jaya Pikrama, and Tun Biajid. The forts at Pekan were strengthened and the people mobilized. There was delay in completing the main fortification called the 'Fort of Pahang', also known as Kota Biram, which stood on the site of the modern Sultan Abu Bakar Museum, but it ended up being completed before the invasion. The people composed a song, the first line of which ran: "the fort of Pahang, the flames devour". The invaders made only a half-hearted attempt on Pahang, and were soon put to fight with severe losses. They were forced to return by the route which they had come. This was the last Siamese invasion of Pahang.
In 1511, the capital of Melaka was attacked and conquered by the Portuguese Empire, prompting a retreat of Sultan Mahmud's court to Pahang by the Penarikan route. There, he was welcomed by Abdul Jalil. The deposed ruler stayed a year in the country during which time he married one of his daughters, whose mother was a Kelantanese princess, to Sultan Mansur. Between 1511 and 1512, while Mahmud was in Pahang, Sultan Abdul Jalil died and was buried at Pekan in Ziarat Raja Raden. In the inscription on his tomb, his name given as Abdul Jalil and the date of his death is 917 AH. It is recorded in de Albuquerque's commentaries, that Sultan Mahmud died of grief in Pahang. The Portuguese must have mistaken Abdul Jamil, who died exactly at the date, for Sultan Mahmud. After Abdul Jalil's death Sultan Mansur was the sole ruler. He was killed by all of his hulubalang between 1512 and 1519, for committing adultery with a widow of his father.
Mansur was succeeded by his first cousin, Raja Mahmud, another son of Muhammad Shah, who may be the prince who is described as "the son of the original ruler of Pahang" (anak Raja Pahang raja yang asal) in the Malay Annals. The new Sultan's first royal wife was his first cousin, Raja Olah. After his accession to the throne, he married a second wife, Raja Khadija, one of the daughters of his cousin Marhum Kampar, around 1519. This marriage, which took place at Bintan was designed to strengthen Marhum Kampar position in his fight against the Portuguese. Mahmud was installed sultan by his new father-in-law.