Malacca Sultanate

The Malacca Sultanate was the Malay trading empire of the straits, lasting from about 1400 to 1511. Its founder Parameswara, a prince of Singapore on the run, saw a mouse-deer kick his hunting dog in the bushes of Malacca and read the omen: here, where the weak defy the strong, he would build his city. The omen held. Commanding the strait between India and China, Malacca grew into the greatest port of the fifteenth century, where Gujarati, Chinese, Javanese and Arab merchants met under the sultan's harbour laws; Classical Malay became the region's lingua franca and Islam its faith. Ming China recognised the new power: the Yongle emperor enrolled Malacca as a tributary equal to Siam, and Zheng He's treasure ships called at its quays. At its height the sultanate ruled from Kedah to Sumatra's east coast. In 1511 Portuguese cannon under Afonso de Albuquerque broke the city after a month's siege; the last sultan fled south, and his heirs founded Johor, but the straits' golden age went with the fallen port.