The Last Sultan

 

There are stories that creep through the humid nights of the Malay Peninsula like fog rolling off a graveyard pond, and this is one of them. It’s a story about power and blood and the terrible things men do when they think God has anointed them to rule over other men. It’s about Sultan Mahmud Shah II of Johor, and if you knew anything about the way evil breeds in the hearts of small, cruel men, you’d know this story was going to end badly from the very start.

Now, I’m telling you this straight from the pages of Tuhfat al-Nafis, written down by a man named Raja Ali Haji who understood that sometimes the truth cuts deeper than any kris blade ever could. And the truth about Sultan Mahmud Shah II was this: he was rotten to the core, like fruit left too long in the tropical sun.

The Sultan had a particular fondness for what you might call recreational cruelty. He’d wake up in his palace—and you could picture it, all carved teak and gold leaf, the kind of place that ought to house saints but usually shelters sinners—and he’d think to himself, “What terrible thing can I do today?” It was a hobby with him, the way some men collect stamps or whittle duck decoys.

But even evil men sometimes bite off more than they can chew, and that’s exactly what happened when the Sultan set his sights on the wife of his own admiral, a man named Megat Seri Rama.

Now, Megat Seri Rama was the kind of man who understood the ocean the way a preacher understands sin—intimately and with deep respect for its power. He’d served his Sultan faithfully, the way good men do even when they’re serving bad masters. But when Sultan Mahmud Shah II killed his wife based on lies as thin as rice paper, something fundamental shifted in the admiral’s soul. Something dark and final, like the moment when a levee gives way and all that held-back water comes rushing through.

The Sultan, you see, had made the classic mistake of every bully who ever drew breath: he’d assumed that good men would keep taking his punishment forever. He’d forgotten that even the gentlest dog will bite if you kick it enough times.

So it was that one sticky afternoon, when the air hung heavy as a burial shroud and the Sultan was being carried through his domain in his royal palanquin like some bloated spider in a silk web, Megat Seri Rama struck. Quick as a snake, deadly as cancer. The Sultan died right there in his golden chair, carried aloft like some false god, and that’s how he got his posthumous nickname: Mahmud Mangkat Dijulang—Mahmud Who Died Aloft.

The people remembered that image. Oh yes, they remembered it the way children remember the monster under the bed—with a mixture of terror and dark satisfaction. Because sometimes, just sometimes, the monster gets what’s coming to it.

But here’s where the story gets interesting, the way Stephen King stories always do when you think you’ve reached the end but you’re really just getting started.

The Sultan had left behind no legitimate heirs—evil men are often careless about such things—but he had gotten a concubine named Encik Pong with child. And wouldn’t you know it, just like in one of those old fairy tales your grandmother might have whispered to you on stormy nights, that unborn baby was going to grow up to be trouble. The kind of trouble that changes the course of history.

The new Sultan, Abdul Jalil—who’d been the old Sultan’s Prime Minister and probably figured he’d earned the throne by not being quite as much of a bastard as his predecessor—well, he decided that dead Sultans shouldn’t have living sons. Bad for business, you understand. So he sent his people after Encik Pong, because that’s what scared, weak men do: they kill pregnant women and call it statecraft.

But the sea people—and every kingdom worth its salt has sea people, those mysterious folks who live between the waves and the shore and understand currents both literal and metaphorical—they spirited Encik Pong away to Singapore. There, in safety, she bore her son. A son who would grow up to be called Raja Kecil, the Little King, though there was nothing little about his ambitions.

The boy was raised by the Tumenggung of Muar, and for a while, things were quiet. But secrets have a way of surfacing, like bodies in a lake after the ice breaks up. When the boy reached his early teens, Sultan Abdul Jalil began to hear whispers, to see familiar features in a young face, to wake up in cold sweats from dreams where dead men’s sons came calling with sharp blades and righteous anger.

So the boy ran. Had to. Because in the sultanates of old Malaya, being the rightful heir to a throne could be a death sentence if you didn’t have an army to back up your bloodline.

He found protection with a Minangkabau merchant named Nahkoda Malin—and isn’t it funny how salvation sometimes comes from the most unexpected quarters? This merchant took the boy across the waters to Sumatra, to a place called Pagaruyung, where the ruler took one look at the handsome, sharp-minded youth and adopted him like he was a lost puppy instead of a ticking time bomb.

The Queen Mother, Princess Jamilan, she felt sorry for the boy—the way women do for strays and orphans and young men with haunted eyes. She adopted him too, and suddenly Raja Kecil had a family again. The kind of family that teaches you how to fight, how to lead, and how to wait for your moment.

In Minangkabau tradition, young men go on walkabout at thirteen—they call it merantau, this journey into the world to learn who you really are. So off went Raja Kecil, down the Batanghari River, learning the arts of trade and war, making alliances, gathering the kind of knowledge that turns exiled princes into conquering kings.

He served the Sultan of Palembang, earned himself the title Tuan Bujang, married a princess from the upper reaches of the Musi River. Each step was calculated, each alliance chosen with care. Because Raja Kecil understood something that his murdered father never had: power isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, piece by careful piece, until you’ve got enough of it to take back what’s yours.

When he finally returned to Pagaruyung, loaded down with experience and burning with purpose, the Minangkabau ruler looked at his adopted son and saw what he’d become: a weapon shaped by exile and sharpened by injustice. Through ancient ceremonies that probably would have made your skin crawl with their old, dark power, Raja Kecil was proclaimed Putra Alam Minangkabau—Prince of the Minangkabau Realm. They gave him a seal, the kind of symbol that transforms bastard sons into legitimate rulers.

Then came the invasion.

Picture it: war fleets filling the Malacca Strait like storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Minangkabau migrants, tribal chiefs, and Bugis sailors led by a man named Daeng Parani—who’d demanded to be made Prime Minister in exchange for his help, because everyone’s got an angle in stories like this.

The beautiful, terrible irony was that when Raja Kecil’s forces appeared, Johor’s own warriors welcomed them. The palace cannons had been loaded with water instead of shot—sabotage from within, the kind of betrayal that happens when people have had enough of being ruled by usurpers and murderers.

Sultan Abdul Jalil surrendered without a fight, confessed his crimes like a man in a confession booth, and got himself pardoned by the rightful heir. Just like that, Raja Kecil had his father’s throne back.

But here’s the thing about revenge—it’s never quite as satisfying as you think it’s going to be, and it always comes with a price attached.

Raja Kecil moved his capital to Bintan and renamed his kingdom Johor-Riau, because he was smart enough to know that the men who’d betrayed his father once would probably do it again given half a chance. And sure enough, that pardoned Prime Minister Abdul Jalil slipped away to Pahang and declared himself ruler there, because gratitude is a rare commodity in the currency of power.

When Raja Kecil tried to solve this problem through family diplomacy, Abdul Jalil ended up dead due to what the history books politely call “a misunderstanding.” Which prompted Abdul Jalil’s supporters to make a deal with that same Daeng Parani who’d helped put Raja Kecil on the throne in the first place—because Daeng Parani was feeling distinctly unappreciated after being refused the Prime Minister position he’d been promised.

And that’s how comeuppance works in stories like this: the very people who help you climb to the top are often the ones who’ll push you off the mountain when you forget to pay your debts.

In 1721, the chickens came home to roost. Raja Kecil found himself besieged in Bintan by a coalition of Pahang princes and Bugis warriors, pressed on all sides like a man caught in a house fire with all the exits blocked. So he did what smart men do when the walls are closing in: he ran.

He fled to Siak, regrouped, and in 1723, he made a decision that probably saved his life and guaranteed his legacy. He gave up his claim to the throne of Johor and founded something entirely new: the Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura. A kingdom that blended Malay traditions with Minangkabau customs, ruled by a man who’d learned that sometimes the best way to win the game is to stop playing by other people’s rules and write your own instead.

And maybe that’s the real lesson of Raja Kecil’s story—not that good always triumphs over evil, because we all know that’s not always true, but that sometimes, when the world won’t give you justice, you have to build your own world. Even if it means walking away from everything you thought you wanted in order to create something better.

The boy who’d been born in exile, raised by strangers, and hunted by the men who’d murdered his father had become something his enemies never expected: not just a king, but the founder of a kingdom that would outlast all their petty schemes and territorial ambitions.

And in the humid nights of the Malay Peninsula, when the fog rolls in from the sea and the old stories whisper through the palm trees, they still tell the tale of Raja Kecil—the Little King who learned that sometimes the best revenge is not just living well, but building something so magnificent that it makes your enemies weep with envy.

Because that’s the thing about power: it’s not about the throne you inherit. It’s about the kingdom you create.