Bolkiah

The Bolkiah are the royal house of Brunei, the Malay sultanate on the northern coast of Borneo. Tradition traces the line to Awang Alak Betatar, the local ruler who embraced Islam and became the first sultan, Muhammad Shah, in the later fourteenth century, together with his brother Awang Semaun.

The dynasty took its name from Sultan Bolkiah, who reigned from 1485 to 1524 during Brunei's golden age. He brought in Javanese blacksmiths to cast cannon, and Brunei's sway reached the coasts of Borneo, the Sulu Archipelago and Manila, whose rajahs married into the house. In 1521 Pigafetta's surviving Magellan expedition visited Brunei.

From the later seventeenth century succession quarrels, the rise of Sulu and piracy eroded the sultanate into a loose cluster of riverine territories. By the 1830s open revolt had broken out in the Bau region.