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Raja Lumu – Sultan Salehudin: the founding of the Selangor dynasty

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Raja Lumu – Sultan Salehudin: the founding of the Selangor dynasty

Khoo Kay Kim’s 1985 article, delivered as a Silver Jubilee Lecture for Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, reconstructs the political circumstances of eighteenth-century Johor and the Malay Peninsula that culminated in Raja Lumu’s installation as Sultan Salehuddin of Selangor in 1766, arguing that the Melaka Sultanate’s tradition of conferred legitimacy (daulat) remained the operative principle of Malay statehood even after the kingdom’s fragmentation.

Summary

The article traces the disintegration of the Johor kingdom following the assassination of Sultan Mahmud in 1699, through the successive Bugis ascendancies under Daing Marewah and Daing Chelak, to the point where Daing Chelak’s son Raja Lumu controlled Selangor as a Bugis fief. Kim situates this within a broader pattern: four of Malaysia’s present states (Negeri Sembilan, Trengganu, Kelantan, Selangor) were founded in the eighteenth century, each deriving its legitimacy from an existing legitimate ruler rather than from mere military conquest. The Bugis, despite their military dominance, repeatedly subscribed to Malay political tradition—installing Sultan Sulaiman of Johor in 1721 and accepting Malay titles and ceremonies—demonstrating what Kim calls the enduring power of the Melaka legacy.

The central narrative concerns the events of 1766, when Raja Lumu sailed to Perak and was received by Sultan Mahmud (formerly Raja Kimas) at Kota Lumut. Kim draws on Dutch contemporary records to establish that Sultan Mahmud formally installed Raja Lumu as Yang Dipertuan of Selangor with the title “Sultan Salehuddin,” presenting him with the nobat. The indigenous sources (Misa Melayu and Tufat al-Nafis) each distort the episode to flatter their respective patrons, and only the Dutch documents resolve the discrepancy. Kim infers two motivations for Raja Lumu’s démarche: liberation from Johor hegemony and the need for legitimization as “Sultan” rather than merely “Raja.”

The article closes with a brief account of Sultan Salehuddin’s aggressive reign (attacking Kedah in 1771, pressing into Perak with twenty ships in 1777), the administrative offices he created, and the dynastic succession through to the reigning sultan. Two appendices reproduce full newspaper accounts of the coronations of 1903 and 1939, and a genealogical chart traces the line from La Maddusalat of Luwu to Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah.

Key Findings

  • The Dutch records confirm that on 5 November 1766, six ships carrying Raja Lumu and sixty court members entered Sungai Perak, and that Sultan Mahmud installed him as “Sultan Salehuddin” at Kota Lumut, presenting the nobat (pp. 7–8).
  • The indigenous Malay source Misa Melayu concealed the Raja Muda’s absence from the ceremony, while the Bugis source Tufat al-Nafis recast Raja Lumu’s visit as a pleasure trip to Pangkor; only the Dutch documents arbitrate between them (p. 8).
  • The Bugis had settled at Kuala Selangor by the late seventeenth century and at Kuala Linggi by 1701; by March 1721 Daing Marewah controlled territory stretching from Bernam to Melaka (pp. 2–3).
  • In 1721, after capturing Riau and massacring the Minangkabau there, the Bugis installed Raja Sulaiman (son of the assassinated Sultan Abdul Jalil) as Sultan of Johor and conferred the title of Yang Dipertuan Muda on Daing Marewah himself—an unprecedented triple use of “Sultan” in one kingdom (pp. 3–4).
  • Sultan Salehuddin’s reign lasted until at least 1778 (the appendix dates his death to c. 1782); he led the 1771 attack on Kedah in which “everything was burned” and women and children carried off, and in 1777 appeared in the Perak River with twenty Bugis ships (pp. 10–11).
  • The original Selangor crown, of Hindu design from Celebes, was used at the coronations of both Sultan Salehuddin and Sultan Ibrahim; by the reign of Sultan Muhammad (1826–1857) it had been altered to reflect Islamic influence (p. 11).

Conclusion

Kim’s definitive argument is that no new Malay kingdom in the eighteenth century departed from the Melaka model: each founder received his authority from an existing legitimate ruler, and the Bugis—military conquerors though they were—voluntarily accepted the symbols and ceremonies of the tradition they had conquered. The founding of Selangor in 1766 was thus not a rupture but the latest expression of a continuous political culture stretching back to the Melaka Sultanate, one that persisted through British intervention and into the modern constitutional monarchy.

Context

  • The lecture was arranged by the MBRAS and delivered at the Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, on 17 September 1985, in honour of the Silver Jubilee of Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah (p. 1).
  • The appendices reproduce full Malay Mail reports of the 1903 and 1939 coronations at Klang, providing detailed descriptions of the Panchapersada, the tepong tawar ritual, the nobat instrumentation, and the procession routes (pp. 14–23).

References