Pasai

The Pasai sultans ruled Samudera Pasai, a Muslim harbour kingdom on Sumatra's northern coast and one of the archipelago's earliest Islamic states. According to the Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai, Merah Silu founded it in 1267 and took the name Malik ul Salih on converting; his Arabic-inscribed tomb, dated 1297, is among Indonesia's oldest Muslim monuments.

After Srivijaya's decline, Pasai grew rich on its hinterland's gold, forest produce and later pepper, becoming an emporium where Arab, Indian and Malay merchants met. Ibn Battuta stayed there in 1345 as the guest of Sultan al-Malik al-Zahir, noting it as the easternmost land of Islam.

Majapahit troops sacked the town in the fourteenth century, and from the 1400s trade drifted to Malacca. The Portuguese seized Pasai in 1521 but abandoned it in 1524, when Ali Mughayat Syah, the first sultan of Aceh, annexed the territory.