Sejarah negeri dan raja-raja Perlis
Hussain Baba bin Mohamad, a court official of the Perlis royal establishment, published this comprehensive account of the origins and succession of the rulers of Perlis in 1969, tracing the state’s evolution from a minor Kedah district called Kayang to a sovereign Malay state whose fifth ruler, Tuanku Syed Putra, would ascend to the throne of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. The article serves both as a dynastic history and a political narrative of how a small northern state navigated Siamese suzerainty, British protection, Japanese occupation, and eventual national independence.
Summary
The article reconstructs the political genealogy of Perlis from its earliest documented status as a Kedah dependency. Kayang (or Indera Kayangan) was administered by the Raja Muda of Kedah, Tengku Dhiauddin, who was appointed to govern the district in the late eighteenth century. The 1821 Siamese invasion from Ligor, in which the Malay forces under Syed Hussain Jamalullail initially repelled the attackers before ultimately being overwhelmed, set in motion the political realignment that would produce a separate state. After years of Siamese occupation, Tengku Anom negotiated the restoration of Kedah’s autonomy in 1843, and as part of the settlement, the Kayang district was formally ceded to Syed Hussain—Tengku Dhiauddin’s son-in-law and a descendant of the Hadrami Arab Jamalullail family—thereby creating the entity that would become known as Perlis, a name the author derives from the Malay phrase “negeri yang diperoleh” (the obtained state).
The middle sections of the article follow the succession through four rulers, with particular emphasis on the reign of Syed Safi (third ruler, d. 1905), during which Perlis underwent its first modernisation: roads, canals, and bridges were constructed, and young men were sent to Penang for English-language education. The author incorporates a detailed passage from W.W. Skeat’s account of the Cambridge University Expedition of 1899–1900, which provides a rare contemporary snapshot of the state’s administrative and economic condition—its revenue, tax structure, population estimates, and physical infrastructure. The transition from Siamese to British protection in 1909, effected through an Anglo-Siamese treaty, is noted as the pivotal moment that integrated Perlis into the Straits Settlements’ sphere of influence.
The final and most extensive portion of the article is devoted to Tuanku Syed Putra (fifth ruler, b. 1920), whose experiences during the Japanese occupation—stripping of his heir-apparent title, forced exile to Kelantan, and the establishment of a trade in spices and cattle to sustain himself—form the dramatic core of the narrative. His restoration in 1945, his refusal to sign the MacMichael Agreement that would have created the Malayan Union, and his election as the third Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 1961 are presented as the culmination of the state’s political maturation. The article closes with a detailed genealogical chart of the Jamalullail royal line.
Key Findings
- Kayang was formally separated from Kedah and granted to Syed Hussain Jamalullail on 14 December 1843 (14.12.1259 A.H.), establishing the first Raja of Perlis, who reigned until his death on 20 November 1873 (pp. 176–177).
- During the 1821 Siamese invasion, approximately 10,000 Malay soldiers initially repelled the Ligor forces, but a contingent of 300 under Syed Hussain was defeated; the Siamese ultimately occupied Kedah and Kayang, installing Tengku Anom as their puppet governor (p. 175).
- According to Skeat’s 1900 observations, Perlis’s total annual revenue was $27,000, which did not cover government expenditure; the largest single tax was on opium, rice, and other goods at $14,000 per annum, with no land revenue collected (p. 180).
- The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 transferred Perlis from Siamese to British protection; a British financial adviser, H.E. Duke, was sent by Siam in 1905 to manage the state’s fiscal difficulties, and a British Resident was appointed in 1909 (p. 182).
- During the Japanese occupation (1941–1945), Tuanku Syed Putra was stripped of his title as Crown Prince and his allowance was cut; he sustained himself through a trade in spices, dried chillies, and cattle imported from Siam, and was supported at $90 per month by his uncle Raja Syed Alwi until the latter’s death in 1943 (pp. 183–184).
- Tuanku Syed Putra was installed as the third Yang di-Pertuan Agong on 4 January 1961 and served until 20 September 1965, during which period he performed the ceremonial washing of the Ka’aba in 1965 and made state visits to India, Pakistan, Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Republic, and Jordan (pp. 185–192).
Conclusion
Hussain Baba presents the history of Perlis as a narrative of legitimate sovereignty continuously maintained through external threats—Siamese conquest, Japanese usurpation, and British constitutional engineering—by a single dynastic line of Hadrami Arab descent. The definitive takeaway is that the smallness of the state was no impediment to its political agency: from a district of a few thousand souls paying tribute to Bangkok, Perlis produced a ruler who refused to surrender his sovereignty to the Malayan Union and who went on to head the federal government of an independent Malaysia.
Context
- The article draws substantially on W.W. Skeat and F.F. Laidlaw’s account of the Cambridge University Expedition to the Malay Peninsula (1899–1900), published in JMBRAS vol. 26, pt. 4 (1953), pp. 134–140, as its primary source for the pre-colonial administrative and economic condition of Perlis (p. 180, n. 2).
- The author’s P.J.K. (Pujian Jemaah Kehormat) designation and his intimate knowledge of royal household affairs, private correspondence, and the Japanese occupation period suggest he was a senior court official or close associate of the Perlis royal family, giving the article the character of an authorised dynastic history rather than an independent scholarly reconstruction.