Malay - History and Cultural Relations



Malays were part of the migration southward from Yunnan and eastward from the peninsula to the Pacific islands where Malayo-Polynesian languages still predominate. Malays came in several, probably continuous, waves, pushing aside people who are now the Orang Asli (aboriginals) and the pre-Islamic or proto-Malay. Early Chinese and Indian visitors and voyagers from about 600 B.C. reported on village farming and metal-using settlements of Malays. The earliest historical date on the peninsula is about A.D. 1400. The actual history begins with the Malacca Sultanate (1402-1511), although there is mention of Malaya in the maritime empire of Srivijaya that was based on Java about A.D. 700. The trading empire based on control of the Strait of Malacca was the center of the diffusion of Islam throughout Malaysia. This spread, which was led by teachers and sufis, was peaceful. Between the 1500s and the 1800s there were struggles among competing groups such as the Acehnese, the Bugis, and the Minangkabau for dominance on the peninsula, while Melaka struggled with the Dutch and other European powers who sought to straddle the commerce in the strait. The British founded Penang in 1786, then developed Singapore and took over Melaka to form the Straits Settlements; then they intervened on the mainland in the fratricidal wars of the Sultans and formed the Federated Malay States, and in 1909 they merged all of the above with the unfederated states to form Malaya. With the expansion of Western enterprise in tin mining, rubber, and palm plantations, Malaya imported Indian and Chinese populations to form a plural society in which Malays were just under half. With the outbreak of World War II the Japanese occupied Malaya and were expelled with the defeat of the Japanese empire. A twelve-year war called the "emergency" followed, and Malaya received its independence in 1957. For a brief time Singapore was part of the union, but is now independent. A brief war with Indonesia called the "confrontation" settled rival claims on Borneo. Civil unrest caused by communal tensions among the Malays and Chinese ushered in a period of centralized rule from 1969 to 1972, but since then Malaysia has had a working parliamentary system with coalitions among the major communal groups. Malaysia keeps close cultural ties with Indonesia and is taking a larger role in the world of Islam.


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