Book Excerpt
(Protected by Copyright. Quotations and reproductions subject to approval and written permission of the Author) :-
Patani reacted to Ayuthaya’s initial belligerence by launching a sea-borne attack on a Burmese-ravaged Ayutthaya in 1563-4. Patani’s Sultan Mudaffar Shah’s forces overran Ayutthayan defenses and sacked the palace, with King Maha Chakkraphat fleeing to safety. The Patani army withdrew when Sultan Mudaffar was mortally wounded in battle. Patani established trade and military ties with Portugal in 1516 and became the first Malay Kingdom to establish diplomatic/trade relations with the Japanese Ryukyu Kingdom (1515), the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate (1592), the Dutch (1601), England (1612) and various kingdoms of Indochina and the Malay Archipelago. Ayutthaya followed suit and formed a military-commercial alliance with the Dutch in the 1620s to counter Patani's defense pact with Portugal. Supported by their European allies, Patani and the successive Siamese kingdoms of Ayutthaya, Thonburi and Krung Thep fought at least a dozen wars from 1603 to 1839. A huge Ayutthayan attack was famously repulsed in 1634 by a strong Patani army led by Raja Ungu, Paduka Sri Shah Alam, the greatest Queen in the history of the Malay World. The two adversaries ceased hostilities after the formalisation of a peace treaty between Ayutthaya’s King Prasat Thong (Sanpet V) and Patani’s Raja Kuning, Phraya Nang Chao Yang, in 1635.
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Ayutthaya was then immersed in bloody warfare with the Burmese until its fall to Burma’s King Hsinbyushin in 1767. Patani and other Malay kingdoms of the Kra Isthmus enjoyed a fleeting window of tranquility in the aftermath of the Ayutthayan collapse but the new Thonburi Kingdom of King Taksin succeeded in subjugating the old Malay Kingdoms of Ligor, Cahaya, Rundung, Terang, Ghraibi, Bukit/Ujung Salang, Bedalung and Singgora (later transliterated in Thai as Nakorn Si Thammarat, Chai'ya, Ranong, Trang, Krabi, Phuket, Phatthalung and Songkhla). Patani resisted these onslaughts but suffered a grave setback when the new Krung Thep Kingdom of King Rama I overran the kingdom in an epic war in 1786, which saw the death of Sultan Muhammad on the battlefield and the partitioning of a quarter of Patani’s territory (Tiba and Cenak) to Siam-held Singgora. Patani finally joined other isthmian Malay states as a Siamese vassal, although Siam’s actual control oscillated with the relative strengths of both kingdoms. Major wars were fought between Siam and a resistant Patani in 1789-91, 1808-10, 1831-32 and 1838-39. Siam engineered a further break-up of Patani into seven principalities after the particularly bloody war of 1810. The war of 1831-32, the mother of all the Siamese-Patani wars, required a Siamese force of 300,000 men and British military assistance (naval blockade off the Kedah-Trang coast) to contain a Patani-Kedah force bolstered by troops from Kelantan and Trengganu. An exhausted Siam co-opted a still-simmering Patani and a strengthening Kelantan in the 1840s and avoided the prospect of a formidable Patani-Kelantan alliance against Siamese hegemony by negotiating the ceding of the Patani throne to Tuan Besar, cousin and main political adversary of Kelantan’s Sultan Muhammad II. The Tuan Besar dynasty regained the luster of the Patani Kingdom as Siamese Kings, Rama III (Nang Klao) and Rama IV (Mongkut) gradually eased Siamese involvement in the contentious Malay region. The Patani throne regained its prestige and via intermarriage and astute diplomacy began to play a prominent role among the Malay states of the peninsula. Bedecked in the finest regalia of contemporary Malay sovereigns, subsequent Patani Sultans regard the Siamese Monarch as equals – a brother ruler – and the relevance of the Siamese state to the affairs of Patani was only historical, mostly symbolic. The reigns of Tengku Puteh (1856-81), Tengku Besar (1881-90) and Tengku Bongsu (Sultan Sulaiman Sharifuddin, 1890-98) were marked with relative peace in an era of political détente between Siam and the seven principalities of the Patani Region -- namely Patani, Nong Chik, Jering, Teluban, Jala, Reman and Legeh.
This state of relative regional stability would be shattered during the reign of Siam's Rama V, King Chulalongkorn .......
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9 comments:
A'slmkm sir,
Is the website 'Empayar Benua Siam Islam Nagara Kedah''s historical assumptions authentic facts or fallacies? It seemed to me that your version showed a clash of interest within the Malay kingdoms whilst his version showed the Malay empire's gradual demise from the great civilisation of Ayyuthia to the horrific end of Long Jaafar, the last of the 33 emperors, at the hands of the Sukothai and the British. Pray tell which is which...
I’ve browsed the “Nagara Kedah Pasai Ma” site extensively and I can categorically state that it is based entirely on falsehood brought about by the troubling delusions of its owner, an En. Mazlan of Kedah or Perlis.
His “stories” are all jumbled fairytales of countries and kings of different eras. The T’ai kingdom of Sukhothai flourished only briefly – from 1238 to about the mid-late 1300s. Sukhothai was in no position to collaborate with any British force against any Malay “emperor” in the early 19th century as alleged by that site as this kingdom vanished over seven centuries earlier.
The successor T’ai kingdom of Ayutthaya existed from the mid-late 1300s to 1767 when it was destroyed by the Burmese led by King Hsinbyushin. The last Ayutthayan king, Boromaracha V (Suriyat Amarin or Ekhataat) perished in the invasion. The successor T’ai state to Ayutthaya was Thonburi, founded by the ethnic-Chinese General Cheng Chao Sin, better known as Phya Taksin. Taksin himself was toppled and executed by another Chinese General, Cheng Tong Duan – known today as Chao Phraya Chakri or Rama I – in a palace coup in 1782. General Tong Duan then founded the Chakri Dynasty based at Krung Thep (today’s Bangkok) and this family has ruled Thailand ever since.
Ayutthaya was never a Malay empire. It was a T’ai Buddhist kingdom, although it had many Muslims in senior positions. The owner of that website is delusional and has done great damage to Malay perception of their history. I would like to think that I’m an authority on Southeast Asian history (esp. ancient Siam, Cambodia, Champa, Patani, Srivijaya and Langkasuka) and I’m sorry to say that 100% of that site’s claims are fallacies and malicious fabrications. History is based on corroborating historical evidence by adjacent kingdoms. None of his claims could even be remotely corroborated by any historical document anywhere, except via his own twisted rationalization of place names and word associations and jumbled eras. The Dutch, French, English, Persians and Portuguese kept meticulous records of their dealings with Ayutthaya. From my extensive research across the world’s greatest archives and libraries, I’ve never come across any document testifying to a Malay emperor of Ayutthaya, or that Ayutthaya was a Malay empire.
That site also claimed that the “Siam” and the “Thai” are different peoples, with the “Siam” synonymous with the “Melayu” and the “Thai” being descendants of the “Suku Thai” from up north. Again, this is an absurd misrepresentation. The Siamese are members of the T’ai-Kadai racial group. “Thai” is just a recent concoction by Field Marshall Phibun Songkhram in 1938 to incorporate ALL ethnic groups in Siam, which he renamed Thailand. “Thai” means “free” in Siamese. “Sukhothai” has nothing to do with the phrase “Suku Thai.” Sukhothai is actually the Siamese corruption of the Sanskrit name “Sukhodaya’ for that old kingdom.
I believe this Mazlan is a UITM staffer. Something must be done before his one-man delusional quest to twist history affects the unfortunate Malay students at that institution. I advise you don’t waste time reading his delusions.
Anyway, my Patani book gives a detailed account of Ayutthaya and its relationship with the Patani Malay kingdom.
Biar betul si mamat Mazlan nie??? Kalau dia sekarang nie jadik tenaga pengajar, tak ke hari biru dibuatnya. Mujor ada orang buat cross reference ngan kijangmas. Kes Naya nie, big time!!
kempasman,
macam tu lah intelektual malaysia kalau nak tau. "intelektual kangkung" je! perangai menipu mazlan blogger tu sama je macam chakri haha
What do you mean "Chinese General"? You mean the Chakris are not pure T'ai? ...and later the kings become more "T'ai" than the T'ais? Oh my god! No wonder Chakri dynasty only 200+ years of throne.
...and later Obama will become more "white" than the whites...
Danke!
Genial dispatch and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you for your information.
great share, great article, very usefull for me...thank
you
I think you will want to put a facebook button to your blog. I just bookmarked the article, however I had to complete this by hand. Just my 2 cents.
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