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The kingdom of Malacca was founded by
Parameswara, a prince of Palembang, in the 14th century. He developed Malacca to be a very supreme and outstanding kingdom. He made Malacca as the world trade centre and centre for spreading the teaching of Islam and knowledge. His glorious achievement was continued by his successors after him. Malacca achieved its golden age and became a great kingdom as well as strong empire in the Malay Archipelago during the reign of Sultan Mansur Syah. After experiencing its golden age, Malacca finally reached at its downfall after the death of Sultan Mansur Syah. there are few factors that contributed in this downfall;
- The
weaknesses of Malacca’s defence system
The situation became worse and critical when the
Portuguese led by Alfonso Albuquerque attacked Malacca. For Malacca soldiers, they are losing of skills
because they are not involved in war for a long time. They had been using traditional weapons such as kris, arrow and spear during the war with Portuguese. Whereas, Portuguese used modern weapons such as cannon and the armed forces have well-equipped weapons and good strategic planning with the guidance of Alfonso. Before Portuguese attack Malacca, they had conquered Goa India so they have support of army from Goa India. But for Malacca, the mercenary soldiers from Jawa abandoned state during war.
- Power
struggle among elite
Weak ruling government is the root cause to the
fall of the Malacca Sultanate. They were overdependence on Tun Perak until they cannot find a capable leader to replace him. After the death of Bendahara Tun Perak, Malacca lacked an efficient leader as the replacement of Tun Perak which is Tun Mutahir was weak leader as he more concern on his personal welfare and biased during his administration. Many of the ministers expressed their dissatisfaction with this aspect of the way of his management style. As a result, there were often struggles for power.
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- Corruption
Sultan Mahmud who paid only a little attention
to the administration also enables the officers to act as they pleased. Bribing and defamation were rife and inevitably result in economic instability and discontent among people. Corruption in administration to gain personal wealth had caused the imposed of high taxes on citizens and traders, forced them to shift their attention to Acheh, the other trading port.
Disunity
Malacca’s weak position caused the disunited of
people and split into factions. Bendahara Tun Mutahir is an Indian Muslim. His weak administration and practiced favouritism had caused the Malays to become hostile towards them and develop into racial tension. Bendahara Tun Mutahir been appointed had caused the jealousy among Malays and the evident was when Sultan Mahmud commanded Bendahara Tun Mutahir and Tun Ali to be sentence to death at the betrayal by Raja Mandaliar and Laksamana Khoja Hassan, an Indian native. Bendahara Tun Perak’s son Tepok been appointed as Bendahara but he was too old. All of these factors had causes the disunity among the residents of Malacca.
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