The Shahbandar who became Prime Minister

 The Tengku Ampuan of Pahang, Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah's keynote speech on 'Hukum Kanun Di Alam Melayu' held at the Muzium Negeri Pahang last week.

From Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, and a very good morning.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Before Tun Abdul Razak Hussein became the Prime Minister, he was already a Shahbandar. Before the nation entrusted him with its government, the Sultan of Pahang had entrusted him with an office rooted in our history.

We know much about what Tun Razak gave to Malaysia. Today, I would like us to consider what Pahang had given to Tun Razak. The family into which he was born. The office to which he was appointed. The traditions of government, adab and service that formed part of his world.

My subject today is the Shahbandar: his place beside the ruler, his responsibilities towards the people, and the amanah that gave his title meaning.

Through that history, I hope we may come to see a familiar man more fully. And I hope we will also look afresh at the history of government in our own country.

‘Man Who Walked the Talk’

On Oct 9, I attended a screening of “Man Who Walked the Talk: The Tun Razak Story”. As I watched, my thoughts returned to the Hukum Kanun Pahang. I had spent so much time studying its account of government and the responsibilities of those who assisted the ruler.

Then the connection struck me. Tun Razak was the tenth Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar. The Shahbandar had become Prime Minister.

In an interview afterwards, I said, “It is in their blood, from one generation to another.” By that, I meant a legacy of service: knowledge learned at home, responsibilities observed at close quarters and an understanding of government cultivated across generations.

The person who later entered national politics had already grown up within a tradition of public responsibility.

To understand that tradition, we must look beyond the borders and institutions familiar to us today. The seas of the Malay world connected people. Across them travelled merchants, scholars, craftsmen, families and those seeking a new home.

Bugis migration and maritime activity were part of that movement. By the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Bugis communities and leaders had become an increasingly important presence in the western Malay world.

Their political influence became especially significant in the Johor–Riau world in 1722. They entered a political world with older roots in Melaka and Johor. Through alliances, marriage, trade and service, they helped shape its subsequent history, including the interconnected histories of Johor, Pahang, Riau and Lingga. Within that wider story lies the history of the Shahbandar family.

Family succession

The family genealogy records a connection through the female line to To’ Tuan, a Bugis chief associated with settlement in Pahang around 1722 and improvements in silk weaving. To’ Tondek appears as the first Shahbandar in the recorded family succession.

The settlement date should not be mistaken for a securely established date of first appointment. But it places the family’s connections within a history extending back about three centuries. Of the twelve holders in the succession we are discussing, eleven have belonged to the same family. There was an intervening appointment outside it.

Tun Razak was the tenth. His son, Najib, became the 11th. His grandson, Nizar, is the 12th. The family continuity is remarkable. Yet the office has always demanded more than a place in a genealogy.

Pahang was a vast kingdom. Its mountains, forests, river valleys and coastal settlements presented very different demands.

A ruler needed trusted people through whom the affairs of the country could be conducted. He needed knowledge of places and communities, counsel he could consider and officers able to carry out their responsibilities. The Orang Besar Berempat formed part of that structure.

The Orang Kaya Indera Perba Jelai was associated with Jelai; the Orang Kaya Indera Segara with Temerloh; the Orang Kaya Indera Pahlawan with Chenor; and the Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar with Pekan. Each had regional responsibilities. Together, their offices helped sustain government across Pahang.

The Shahbandar’s proximity to the capital gave his office a particular importance. Generations of Shahbandars have served Pahang’s rulers, offering counsel and assisting in government according to the responsibilities of their time. As my husband reminded me when we discussed this subject, the Shahbandar worked closely with the Sultan.

Linehan observed that the Shahbandar’s position near the capital tended to make him the ruler’s manteri, or chief executive officer. In that sense, he was the ruler’s right-hand man.

Such proximity carried obligations. A trusted officer needed to understand the ruler’s concerns, offer considered advice and help translate decisions into action.

The title placed him within the working life of the palace and the affairs of the state. It was an office with work to do. My study of the Hukum Kanun Melaka and Hukum Kanun Pahang helped me recognise the historical importance of the Shahbandar.

Traditions of administration

Our history of government did not begin in 1957. Long before independence, Malay-Islamic kingdoms possessed their own institutions, offices, laws and traditions of administration. These developed according to the circumstances of their lands, their people and their faith.

The Sultan governed with the assistance of appointed officers. Responsibilities were distributed. Authority carried obligations. The relationship between ruler, ministers and people was a subject of thought, instruction and law. We had written these things down.

In the Hukum Kanun Melaka and Hukum Kanun Pahang, we encounter a civilisation articulating how it should be governed. These texts deserve to be studied as evidence of an indigenous understanding of government, with its own intellectual and Islamic foundations.

In my reading of the Hukum Kanun Pahang, the Shahbandar’s role is articulated: the qualities expected of him, his conduct, his responsibilities and the amanah entrusted to him. The office had expectations that its holder was required to fulfil.

Within a family, the younger generation could learn through observation and guidance how to meet those expectations. The text articulated the responsibilities; upbringing could help make them part of a person’s conduct.

The earlier legal office and the later Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar belong to different stages of history. Their powers and circumstances were not identical. But both invite us to ask how people were prepared to exercise authority in service to the ruler and the country.

This is why the Shahbandar family interests me. Administration was a longstanding part of its history. Its connection with government preceded Tun Razak’s national political career. To understand him as a Shahbandar is to recognise a family tradition of administrators, and to ask how its experience could help prepare a later generation for public responsibility.

How does someone learn such a role? Part of the answer lies in education that does not begin with a school timetable. A son watches his father receive visitors. He hears matters of the state being discussed. He observes how advice is offered, how requests are answered and how the ruler is approached.

Some lessons are deliberately taught. Others are absorbed through the life of the household. There is informal learning through daily observation. There is also more deliberate instruction outside school: guidance in custom, protocol and the duties associated with office. Across generations, the role can be shaped, taught and practised in this way.

Palace protocol was part of the culture of such a family. The order of precedence, respect for seniority, when to stand, when to bow and how to address the ruler could be learned through observation, correction and repeated participation. These things did not have to wait for a formal lesson when a person entered public office. They belonged to the world in which the family lived.

In my view, this helps us understand an additional advantage in Tun Razak’s preparation: familiarity with the conduct expected in formal settings. That grounding could serve him at home and abroad, even as international diplomacy brought its own conventions to learn.

Protocol also teaches attentiveness: knowing who is present, understanding the occasion and showing consideration to others.

The prestige of the title carried expectations. A child raised within that tradition could learn what the position required: how to behave, how to carry himself and how to exercise authority with dignity and restraint.

The role itself could shape the person, even before he was called upon to fulfil it. Its responsibilities could become deeply ingrained through upbringing, rather than appearing for the first time on the day of appointment.

Receiving foreign dignitaries was another setting in which familiarity with courtly conduct could be useful. Knowing how to welcome a guest, recognise seniority and uphold the dignity of an occasion mattered within the palace. Such habits could also help a man who would later represent Malaysia internationally as Prime Minister.

I recognise something of this in a royal family. A prince begins learning the art of kingship before he ascends the throne. He observes his father listening, weighing advice and carrying the responsibilities of the Crown.

A future Shahbandar could receive a similar preparation for service. From father to son, and from elders to the younger generation, a body of experience could be carried forward. That is a legacy.

That is what I meant when I said, “It is in their blood.”

I was speaking of something deeply ingrained through upbringing and example. Of course, an upbringing cannot guarantee the quality of a person’s conduct.

Just as rulers must be judged by how they fulfil their responsibilities, so must Shahbandars. Within any tradition, there is the possibility of good leadership and poor leadership, of duty fulfilled and duty neglected. Every generation must answer for its own actions. An ancestor’s service is an example to follow. The descendant still has to do the work.

Tun Razak’s father, Dato’ Hussein, was himself the Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar and served as District Officer of Bentong. The family’s experience therefore included both a traditional office and work within the administrative service.

Knowledge and experience

Tun Razak was also blessed with the opportunity for formal education. He attended the Malay College Kuala Kangsar and Raffles College in Singapore, and later trained in law at Lincoln’s Inn in London.

That education gave him further knowledge and experience with which to approach the demands of government. He encountered different institutions, legal reasoning and the political questions of his time. I find the meeting of these forms of education especially interesting.

The household could cultivate familiarity with duty, custom and the relationship between ruler and people. Schooling and legal training equipped him for other institutions and wider responsibilities. His formation drew upon both.

That family background also matters when we consider his entry into electoral politics. Umno’s own account describes the family as well respected among the people of Pekan. He came into public life with more than a curriculum vitae: he carried a family name and an office already familiar in the community.

For kampung people who knew that family, he could be recognised through an existing relationship with the place and its people. Such familiarity may have helped him gain a hearing and build support.

Its precise electoral effect would require closer study, but it is a reasonable part of the story to explore. A known name could open a door. He still had to earn the confidence of those he sought to represent.

His experience in rural Pahang matters here too. The biographical accounts place part of his childhood with his grandparents in a kampung setting. His formation included elders, local people and village life, as well as the family’s connection with the palace.

The family’s connection with weaving brings another dimension to this story. Accounts of To’ Tuan, also known as Keraing Aji, associate him with Kampung Mengkasar in Pekan and the improvement of local silk-weaving methods. Pulau Keladi, too, belongs in this wider history of weaving, and it was Tun Razak’s birthplace. The contribution from Sulawesi enriched a developing Pahang tradition. People brought skills, adapted them and passed them on.

My work with Tenun Pahang Di Raja has taught me how much knowledge lives in practice. A weaver learns by watching, asking and trying again. The pattern matters, but so does the judgment of the hands. I have also encountered Tenun Pahang Di Raja in the protection or binding of the Hukum Kanun Pahang manuscripts in my care.

For me, that association is deeply moving. The written heritage of government was preserved with the woven heritage of our people. The dates of the text and its cloth must be studied separately. But their association reminds me that preservation itself is an act of responsibility.

Someone made the cloth. Someone cared for the manuscript. Someone ensured that the next generation could receive them. That is how a legacy survives.

By royal appointment

There is one point I wish to make very clearly. The Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar holds office by royal appointment of the Sultan of Pahang. A long family association can make an office hereditary in custom. It does not make succession automatic.

A child may be born into the family and raised with an awareness of its responsibilities. He is not born with an unconditional entitlement to the office. The appointment remains the ruler’s prerogative, exercised within the applicable constitutional and customary framework. The Sultan considers the person who is to be entrusted with that responsibility.

Family history has its place. So do character, qualifications, ability and the contribution a person can make. The Sultan’s responsibility in making that choice is therefore profound.

I think of the ruler as a gardener choosing the trees and plants that will help a garden flourish. He must consider their character, their suitability and what they will contribute to the whole. A gardener also tends what he has planted. In the same way, appointment calls for continuing attention to how responsibility is being fulfilled.

We can also picture the state as a house: the Sultan is its roof, and the ministers and officers are its supporting pillars. Each must perform its part if the house is to shelter those within it. A pillar must be strong enough to carry its responsibility. The choice of those who support the ruler therefore concerns the wellbeing of the people who depend upon good government.

Above all, this responsibility must be understood in relation to hukum Islam. In my reading of the Hukum Kanun Pahang, authority carries an amanah: to uphold justice, act honestly and exercise power responsibly. The education of a Shahbandar must reach into this moral understanding of office.

Protocol teaches how to stand before a ruler. Islamic principles guide how one should act towards every person entrusted to one’s care. Adab must be evident in receiving a foreign dignitary and in listening to a villager seeking help. The dignity of the office is tested in both encounters.

The Shahbandar’s service to the ruler and the people must therefore be guided by justice, integrity and the knowledge that he is accountable before Allah for the trust he carries. The Islamic understanding of humanity’s responsibility as khalifah on earth gives that trust its moral weight. The ruler and those who assist him must consider how their authority is exercised, whom it protects and whether it serves justice.

Our ancestors thought about these responsibilities deeply enough to preserve them in writing. We owe it to them, and to ourselves, to read and understand what they left us. The roof, the pillars and those who live beneath them all belong within that understanding of responsibility.

There is ceremony, too. The conferment of titles and the Istiadat Menjunjung Duli give public expression to the relationship between ruler and those appointed to serve. In Menjunjung Duli, the officeholder acknowledges allegiance and responsibility before the ruler. The ceremony should remain alive in the conduct that follows it.

I would therefore remind the holder of this distinguished office, and all those entrusted with similar responsibilities: remember the source of your appointment. You hold this office by the Sultan’s appointment. It is not an elected office, and family expectation alone does not confer it. Honour the confidence placed in you through your service, your judgement and your conduct.

To stand close to the ruler is to carry a serious trust.

Tun Razak held two offices that help us understand the journey I am describing. One placed him within Pahang’s longstanding tradition of service under the ruler. The other placed him at the head of the national government.

He belonged by birth to the Shahbandar family; he held the Shahbandar office by appointment. He later became Prime Minister through the constitutional processes of a modern nation. Both offices carried responsibilities, although their powers and foundations differed.

He became Shahbandar in 1950, Pahang State Secretary in 1952 and Menteri Besar in 1955. Before Merdeka in 1957, he had already served within the government of Pahang. His later service as Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister extended his responsibilities to the nation.

So what did Pahang contribute to Malaysia through him?

A leader with formal education and administrative experience, certainly. I would also invite us to consider the tradition of service in which he had been raised: a familiarity with the affairs of government, the responsibilities of office and the relationship between authority and obligation.

Continuity of experience and political culture

From Hukum Kanun Melaka to Hukum Kanun Pahang, through the changes before independence and into national life, our history contains traditions of government worth recovering and understanding. This is a continuity of experience and political culture. The institutions themselves changed profoundly.

In Tun Razak, I see a way to explore how an older inheritance could be put to work in the service of a new nation. His achievements remained his own. He had to prove his ability through action.

That is what makes the title “Man Who Walked the Talk” so fitting.

Today, we have looked at the family and the office that formed part of his background. We have considered how the responsibilities of a Shahbandar could be learned, cultivated and carried across generations. And we have remembered that the value of such an inheritance depends upon what each holder does with it.

From Melaka to Pahang, and from Pahang to Malaysia, we can follow a tradition of administration through changing institutions and circumstances.

In Tun Razak, a Shahbandar carried his upbringing and experience into the leadership of a modern nation. For me, this is part of what Pahang gave to Malaysia: a tradition of governing, advising and serving, carried forward by a man who was already a Shahbandar before he became Prime Minister.

The tradition continues today with Dato’ Nizar Najib, the twelfth Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar and Chairman of the Pahang State Museum Board. His responsibilities connect him both with the institution whose title he holds and with the preservation of the history that gives it meaning. I hope he will hear in my words encouragement and a reminder.

To preserve a title’s history is also to understand its obligations. The museum can tell the story of those who served before him. His own conduct will help determine how that story continues.

I hope he will remember the generations of service behind him, the Sultan’s confidence in appointing him and the people whom he is expected to serve. The prestige of the title carries a responsibility to be worthy of it.

History remembers Tun Razak as Prime Minister. Today, let us also remember him as the Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar of Pahang. Let us remember the office he carried before national leadership, the family tradition that formed part of his upbringing, and the royal trust placed in him.

The Shahbandar became Prime Minister. But the story of the Shahbandar deserves to be remembered in its own right. Before I close, I would like us to remember the beginnings of this larger inheritance.

Parameswara’s founding of Melaka opened a chapter whose influence would reach far beyond the kingdom itself. Through the Islamisation of its kingship and the work of successive rulers, scholars and officers, Melaka became a great centre of Malay-Islamic political and legal life.

The tradition developed over generations. In my study, I have sought to understand its expression in Pahang as a sovereign Malay-Islamic constitutional order: a kingdom articulating the responsibilities of ruler and officers through written law. The Shahbandar belonged within that world of responsibility.

The fall of Kota Melaka did not bring its political and legal inheritance to an end. Through successor kingdoms, family connections, learning and service, that inheritance took new forms. Its influence remains part of the history through which we understand the Malay sultanates of Malaysia today.

When we remember a Shahbandar who became Prime Minister, we are therefore also remembering a much longer story. Melaka gave birth to it. Pahang preserved and refined it. The Malay world inherited it.

Let us remember Parameswara, the founder of Melaka, and the generations who carried forward the Islamic faith, knowledge and responsibilities of government that became part of this inheritance.

With gratitude for the good that has reached us, let us recite Al-Fatihah for him, for Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah, for Tun Abdul Razak, and for those who preserved this legacy.

May Allah grant them His mercy and guide us to fulfil the responsibilities we have received.

Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah holds a master’s degree from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC), International Islamic University Malaysia, and is currently a PhD candidate at ISTAC-IIUM.

- FMT