The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

264 1\EVIEW AHTICLES
again until they made a land-fall at Perlak, where the fakir admitted
the people to the Faith of Islam. The ship then sailed on to
Semudra. And when they reached Semudra the fakir went ashore
where be met Merah Silu bunting for shell-fish on the beach. And
the fakir asked him, 'What is the name of this country?' And
Merah Silu answered, 'This is Semudra.' And the fakir asked,
'What is the name of the headman of this country?' And Merah
Silu replied, 'It is I who am the headman of the people here.' The
fakir thereupon admitted him to the Faith of Islam and taughtliim
the Muslim creed ... Then said the fakir to Shaikh Isma'il, the
master of the ship, 'This is the country of Semudra of which the
Prophet (may God bless him and give him peace) spoke.' Shaikh
Jsma'il then took ashore from his ship the regalia be had brought
with him and installed Merah Silu as Raja with the title of Sultan
Maliku's-Saleh."
The question is: Why did the ship sail past Semudra in the first
place? The answer of co use is that it didn't. This is how I would
interpret the story. Malikul Saleh was ruler of Semudra on the Malay
Peninsula (say, Marco Polo's Samara which I have equated with the
Naksat City Kelantan.) At that time, after the death of Cbandrabunu
in Ceylon about 1260 A.D., the Sri Vijaya States bad split up and tbe
Peninsula and Sumatra became politically separated. Malikul Saleh,
who at that time bad been converted to Islam, decided to build a retreat
that he could retire to in case the situation degenerated and be had to
evacuate his capital. So he built Pasai in North Sumatra which already
had become Moslem. As it happened, the situation worsened and
Malikul Saleh did retire to Pasai with his elder son, Malikul Tahir,
leaving behind his younger son, Malikul Mansur, as ruler of Semudra.
The king died in Sumatra in 1297 or 1307 and his tombstone was found
in the island. When Malikul Saleh went to Sumatra the name of his city
went with him, and the ne~ name became Pasai-Semudera, though the
old capital was still called Semudra. The name Semudra might merely
mean 'ocean' (Skt. Samudra), that is, Pasai-Semudra was what we would
today call Pasai-on-sea. But that is by the way.