The Early Muhammadan Missionaries. 



By E. 0. WlNSTEDT. 



Since I wrote my paper on the " Advent of Mnhammadanisnx 

 in the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago " in Journal 77, I have 

 come across a lecture by that greatest of authorities on things 

 Muhammadan, Dr. Snouck Hurgronje, entitled Arable en Oost- 

 Indie (Ley den). From this lecture it is quite clear that while a 

 few stray Arabs visited the Malay world (' Merveilles de Tlnde/ 

 Ley den, 1883 — 86, pages 255-261:), the bulk of Muhammadan mis- 

 sionaries came from India, and were natives of Gujerat and 

 Malabar. 



The points may be briefly summarized : — I add local corro- 

 borative evidence. 



(1) The 3 Pasai grave-stones of 1-107, 1408, and 1428 a.d. 

 are of Cambay workmanship (J. P. Moquette's paper in Tijd. Bat, 

 Gen. LIX, 1912, pages 208 and 536). So is the Grisek tomb. 

 And two points unknown to Dr. Hurgronje: the Bruas tomb, in 

 Perak, like the Pasai and Grisek tombs is of Indian type ; and the 

 Pengkalan Ivempas tomb of 1467 a.d. has an inscription in some 

 undeciphered Indian alphabet as well as an inscription in Malay : — 

 nere I must correct a suggestion in my previous paper; geology 

 shows that the ' Sword ' is of local stone. 



(2) The 1107 Pasai tomb is that of Abdullah ibn Muham- 

 mad ibn Abdu'l-Ivadir ibn Abdul- Aziz ibn al-Mansur Abu Ja'far 

 al-Abbasi al-Muntasir. Abdullah was thus of the house of Abbas, 

 which provided Baghdad with its Khalifs from the time of the 

 Prophet till it was destroyed by the Turks in 1258 and the last 

 of the Abbaside Khalifs, al-Musta'sim, was killed. Al-Musta ? sim 

 had succeeded in the Khalifate al-Muntasir, who is mentioned on 

 this tomb : and the father of Abdullah whose tomb it is was closely 

 related to him. Xow Muhammad, the father of Abdullah, emi- 

 grated from Baghdad to India and lived in Delhi; and it must 

 have been from Delhi that his son, the Pasai saint, went to 

 Sumatra. So, too, probably the missionaries to Java and Bruas 

 and the saint buried at Pengkalan Kempas came from India. 



(3) The list of missionaries given in the Bustanu's-Salatin 

 (Xeimamr's Ht. Acheh) contains mostly Indians, with some Syrians 

 and Egyptians. 



(4) Evidently the Arabs and Malays knew little of one 

 another. Between 1600-1650 a.d. the Rajas of Banten and Mata- 

 ram sent envoys to the Sharif of Mecca asking him to bestow on 

 them Sultanates, although for centuries then Mecca had been 

 under the Usmanli Sultans of Istambul ! In 1688 envoys from 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 81, 1920. 



