Akar Nusa
A ship rounds the northern tip of Sumatra and the crew look for the harbour of Samudera. In the market they find pepper, cloth, and merchants speaking many languages. A visitor writes that he has been treated kindly by the ruler.
The story
Samudera Pasai was a Muslim kingdom on the north coast of Sumatra. Writers place it from the 13th to the 16th century. It sat at the entrance to the Strait of Melaka, a crossing point of the sea routes between India, the Middle East and China.
Its traditional founder was a man called Merah Silu, who took the name al-Malik al-Salih. The Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai, the Pasai chronicle, tells that he accepted Islam after a dream. It also tells that he named the new settlement Samudera, a word that comes from Sanskrit for the ocean, after a legend of an ant as big as a cat. These parts are stories, not proof. Historians rely more on a tomb in Samudra district, which gives a date pointing to 1297. One reference calls the tomb the oldest known evidence of the kingdom's establishment. Sources differ on the founding year, with 1267 often given.
Marco Polo is reported to have spent about five months in the region, and his travel account names places such as Ferlec, Basma and Samara, the last being Samudera. By the late 14th century Pasai was a wealthy centre of trade. Pepper was grown there in the early 15th century. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited in 1345 and stayed about two weeks. He described the ruler as a devout follower of the Shafi'i school of law.
Pasai was not alone. A neighbouring kingdom named Perlak existed at the same time, and Malik al-Salih is said to have married a daughter of Perlak. This is why scholars are careful about calling any one place the first.
Pasai's fortunes changed. Majapahit attacked and looted the port in the mid-14th century. Then Melaka rose and took much of the trade after the mid-15th century. In 1521 the Portuguese occupied Pasai. Their garrison left in 1524, when the first sultan of Aceh annexed it.
Where you can still see it today
- The tomb of Malikussaleh in Beuringen village, Samudra district, North Aceh.
- In Malay literature. The Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai is a Malay chronicle of the kingdom's founding.
- In the Strait itself, where every port trades goods from many shores, as Pasai did.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
DNA cannot tell us whether a family came from Pasai or what faith their ancestors held. A region estimate may show that your family's threads fit the coasts of Sumatra and the Peninsula. Those coasts had constant contact. Mother lines and father lines show one thread each, among thousands.
DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status. Those belong to history, law, family and personal choice. The story of Pasai is about a port, a trade, and the meeting of people who came for different reasons.
