Sejarah Johor

This study aimed to review the influence of Majallah al-Aḥkām al-‘Adliyyah of Ottoman Civil Code towards the Muslim society in state of Johor. The Majallah was restructured by Ottoman Empire in 1869 references to Hanafi’s School. The Majallah was a modern code divided into chapters and comprised generalizes section such as Contract Law, Tort and Evidence Act. Historically, Sultan Abu Bakar was visited to Istanbul and met His Majesty of Caliph Sultan Abdul Hamid II in year 1893 therefore became the first rule of Malay archipalego. The adoption of Majallah al-Aḥkām al-‘Adliyyah in Arabic language as Islamic Civil legislative in year 1893 by Johore Government, also translated to bahasa Melayu in 1913 later during the reigning of Sultan Ibrahim known as Majalah Ahkam Johor. The enforcement according to section 49 and 57 of Johor State Constitution 1895. The methodology using qualitative design based on historical study approach and document analysis. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between the Johor Government and the Ottoman Empire through the book Majallah al-Aḥkām al-'Adliyyah as well as explaining the diplomatic relations of the two governments. The following study will examine the implementation of Majalah Ahkam Johor in the administration of Islamic law in the state of Johor. This paper identified the implementation of Majalah Ahkam Johor in the court of state of Johore was interrupted after the British appointed a General Advisor in 1914.

In 1950 a Singapore Chinese publisher Phua Chye Long (潘醒农） compiled a set of Teochew oral account relating to the settlement of a group of Teochew gambier planters in Singapore, before the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. Through a broad base of evidences,  this research confirms the factuality and accuracy of this previously little-known oral account.

Few authors have as much to say about Singapore and the old Johor capital Batu Sawar as Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge (c.1570-1632). This admiral of the Dutch East India Company sailed to Asia in 1605 and besieged Portuguese Melaka in 1606 with the help of Malay allies. A massive Portuguese armada arrived from Goa to fight the Dutch at sea, break the siege and relieve the Portuguese colony. During his Asian voyage and on his return to Europe in September 1608, Matelieff penned a series of letters and memorials in which he provided a candid assessment of trading opportunities and politics in Asia. He advised the VOC and leading government officials of the Dutch Republic to take a long-term view of Dutch involvement in Asia and fundamentally change the way they were doing business there. Singapore, the Straits region, and Johor assumed a significant role in his overall assessment. At one stage seriously contemplated establishing the VOC’s main Asian base at a location near the Johor River estuary. On deeper reflection, however, Matelieff and the VOC directors in Europe began to shift their attention southward and instead began to prefer a location around the Sunda Strait. This was arguably a near miss for Singapore two full centuries before Thomas Stamford Raffles founded the British trading post on the island in 1819. This book is aimed at students, researchers and general readers who are interested in the history of Singapore and Johor as well as in answering the question: Was Singapore’s potential as a strategic and commercial center not recognized before the arrival of the British?

This book has been published by the National Library of Singapore's Books SG site. It can be accessed as a non-downloadable e-book here:

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/printheritage/detail/422c9b10-422c-4c79-aa6c-f5d69044bda0.aspx?s=admiral

Sultan Abu Bakar very well-known as a Malay’s king who transformed and modernist in his
administration. His Majesty friendship with British also closed during his reigning. Some researchers
had concluded that his administration was associated with the western influence of the British. However, there is less discussion from perspective of Islamization policy in the administration of Sultan Abu Bakar and Sultan Ibrahim in Johore. This question sequence of diplomatic relationships between Johore Government and Ottoman Government, the Islamic Caliphate located in Istanbul in the 19th century. This article aims to analyse the policy of Islamization influenced by the Ottoman Empire in the context of modernization in the administration of Sultan Abu Bakar and Sultan Ibrahim. The enactment of the Johor Government Constitution in 1895 stipulated that the state of Johor was recognized as a sovereign state and independent to practice its Islamization policies. That diplomatic relationships also strengthened the political position of the Johore state from the British threat. The methodology using qualitative design based on historical research approach sourced from contemporary data. The objective of this writing is to display and make an analysis based on contemporary historical sources on the transformation of the policy of Islamization of Sultan Abu Bakar and Sultan Ibrahim in the state of Johore. This paper finds that Sultan Abu Bakar and Sultan Ibrahim had adopted the policies of Islamization effects of diplomatic relationships with the Ottoman Government applied in the Islamic administration of Johore, such as the title of sultan and Islamic legislative.

The Flemish gem trader Jacques de Coutre visited Southeast Asia in the early 17th century, and his lengthy account of his experiences provides a glimpse of Singapore, Johor and the Straits of Melaka during an era for which little written material has survived. This special edition, which presents reworked highlights from the full translation, is designed to provide students, teachers and the wider public with a glimpse of this tumultuous region when it was still controlled by local rulers, and Western colonialism was just gaining a foothold. The author describes dangerous intrigues involving fortune hunters and schemers, as well as local rulers and couriers, adventures that on several occasions nearly cost him his life.
The manuscripts come from a bundle of documents preserved at the National Library of Spain in Madrid that includes De Coutre’s autobiography and several memorials to the Crowns of Spain and Portugal. Chapters from the autobiography have been excerpted from book I, which covers the writer’s life in Southeast Asia between 1593 and 1603. A glossary and list of place names provide information about officials, goods and places mentioned in the text that will be unfamiliar to readers of English.

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This article examines the urban example of Batu Sawar which served as the capital of the Johor kingdom between 1587 and circa 1615. In the mid-eighteenth century European reference works continued to describe Batu Sawar as the capital of Johor, even though the city had long ceased to serve as a trading center, let alone as Johor’s capital, and almost certainly no longer existed. Such observations raise the question of urban impermanence – the transience of sizeable settlements with reference to the Malay Archipelago. Two overarching questions form the backbone of the investigation: First, why did Batu Sawar rise as a regional trading center, and second, what are the factors that contributed to its decline? Batu Sawar’s fate was sealed by a combination of factors that included poor defenses, multiple external shocks, destruction by fire, court politics and rivalry between the early colonial powers.

This chapter examines documents, memorials and briefs of Dutch, German, Portuguese, and Spanish-language origin to explore and reconstruct the dynamics of trade in the Johorese royal capital Batu Sawar. This served as the royal residence of the Johor rulers between the late 1580s and at least until 1609/12. I will argue that in the early 17th century political and economic life at the Johor court at Batu Sawar was dominated by the interests of Raja Ali Jalla bin Abdul Jalil’s four surviving sons, of whom two played an especially important role in forging Batu Sawar’s political and commercial life: Raja Siak in terms of trade in pepper and bezoars from Sumatra and Raja Bongsu in terms of trade in rough diamonds.

A full copy of the book and chapter can be downloaded here free of charge:
https://yayasanmalaya.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/early-modern-southeast-asia.pdf

Dato' Abdullah Abdul Rahman merupakan tokoh agama dan pentadbir Kerajaan Johor yang menjadi perintis kepada penambahbaikan dan pembaharuan sistem pendidikan Islam dan bahasa Melayu di negeri Johor. Penulisan artikel ini adalah untuk meneliti peranan dan sumbangan Dato' Abdullah Abdul Rahman semasa menjawat jawatan dalam Jabatan Agama Johor. Objektif kajian adalah untuk memaparkan sejarah dan latar belakang Dato' Abdullah Abdul Rahman dan menganalisis sumbangan beliau terhadap perkembangan sistem pendidikan Islam dan bahasa Melayu. Reka bentuk kajian menggunakan kaedah kualitatif yang menggunakan pendekatan kajian sejarah dan analisis dokumen. Data dan dokumen dikumpul daripada sumber primer dan sekunder dan dianalisis menggunakan kaedah analisis teks. Hasil kajian mendapati bahawa Dato' Abdullah Abdul Rahman merupakan seorang tokoh agama yang berusaha mengembangkan sistem pendidikan Islam dan bahasa Melayu di Sekolah Agama Kerajaan Johor antaranya memartabatkan pelajar Melayu lepasan dari Timur Tengah, memperkenal Darjah Khas, memperbaharu sukatan pelajaran, dan menghasilkan karya penulisan dan terjemahan untuk rujukan pelajar.

This study addresses the proactive agency of the Siamese kings in cementing commercial and diplomatic ties with the Dutch during the first two decades of the 17th century. Focus shall be placed on two interrelated developments: one, the first diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic in 1608-10; and two, a scheme hatched by Siamese officials to assist the Dutch in obtaining access to the Chinese marketplace. This has deemed necessary after the Dutch, supported by some overseas Chinese businessmen from Southeast Asia, had failed to gain trading access in 1604. On the Dutch side, two men stand in the limelight: Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge, a director of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and supreme commander of its second fleet to Asia, as well as Hugo Grotius, who at the time was a rising star in the Dutch government and later would be celebrated as one of the pathbreakers of modern international law. Their hitherto published and unpublished manuscripts will be examined to ascertain how Matelieff and the VOC directors reacted to these Siamese initiatives and how in turn, the admiral sought to mobilize and co-opt the Siamese into his own commercial and military agenda with the help of Grotius. Introduction Much ink has been spilled in discussing how Siam (Thailand) successfully resisted French and British advances during the territorial grab of the late nineteenth century. Studies have focused on the comprehensive reform programmes launched by kings Mongkut and Chulalongkorn to modernize Siam that aimed at reducing or eliminating the chance of seeing their territorial space and political agency whittled away by the European imperial powers. Such a display of agency by the Siamese monarchs, however, has instructive antecedents in an era when a far less confident and arrogant Europe was beginning to forge more regular contacts with the rulers of mainland and insular Southeast Asia.1 This article will examine how, during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) responded to Siam as a potential mediator, able to help the Dutch gain access to the China trade, and also as a potential military ally against the Portuguese in Southeast Asia. The article will show how the Siamese proactively engaged the VOC in order to further both Dutch and Siamese ends. This makes an interesting contrast to the situation in later centuries when

This paper looks at several maps of the early 17th century that contain information on the economy and geopolitical understanding of the Johor River region (with Singapore) and the adjacent Straits. Combined with period testimonies from extant documentation, it is argued that Johor represented a terminal point in the North-South overland axis as well as a transit hub for maritime, riverine and overland trade.

What do we know about this forgotten capital of Johor from the 17th century? Surprisingly a lot. It was a Malay pepper port and home to a thriving trading community, carry trade and support industries. It featured regularly in geographies and glossaries of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Arguably, Batu Sawar was better known in 18th century France, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands than in 21st Century Malaysia.