Melaka and Its Heirs

Abstract

During the fifteenth century Melaka rose to become, in the words of Tomé Pires, ‘of such importance and profit that it seems to me it has no equal in the world’.¹ Melaka’s great success and its honoured place in Malay history were not only due, however, to its prosperity and renown as a trading centre. Building upon an illustrious past, it established a pattern of government and a lifestyle which was emulated by subsequent Malay kingdoms and became the basis of what was later termed ‘traditional Malay culture and statecraft’. So imposing was the reputation of Melaka that its successors were in a sense condemned to the awesome task of attempting to revive the glory of the Malay past. The trading policies of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and the Dutch in the seventeenth placed such restraints on international commerce that it was all but impossible for a Malay emporium in the tradition of Melaka to re-emerge. But while no Malay kingdom succeeded in re-creating the greatness of Melaka, it remained an inspiration and a source of strength to all those states which considered themselves its heirs.