When history comes full circle

 A forgotten Sultan has been remembered and returned to the centre of his own history.

From the Tengku Ampuan of Pahang, Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah

“It is the composition of the just, wise and accomplished Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah, Caliph of the Blessed State, the like of whom none came after him.”

These words appear in the colophon of Manuscript E of the Hukum Kanun Pahang. Written in Muharram 1000 Hijrah, corresponding to 1591, they identify Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah ibni Sultan Abdul Kadir Muhyiddin Shah as the sovereign for whom, and under whose authority, the manuscript was compiled, codified and composed.

When I first encountered these words, I was struck by the reverence with which the scribe remembered his Sultan: just, wise and accomplished—

“the like of whom none came after him.”

Yet I could never have imagined how personally meaningful those words would eventually become. When I began my Master’s degree, I did not foresee where the journey would end. I set out to study the Hukum Kanun Pahang, a manuscript that had long been treated primarily as an old book of laws. I wanted to understand its history, its principles and its significance to Pahang.

What began as an academic inquiry gradually became something much larger. The manuscript led me to Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah, the twelfth Sultan of Pahang, who reigned from 1591 until 1614. He emerged from the pages not merely as the patron or compiler of a legal text, but as a sovereign who understood that justice, law, Islam and kingship were inseparable.

Under his authority, the Hukum Kanun Pahang became far more than a collection of punishments and prohibitions. It articulated an order of government. It defined the responsibilities of the Sultan and his officers. It regulated justice, administration, commerce and maritime affairs. It placed authority within a moral and legal framework grounded in Islam.

The deeper I travelled into the manuscript, the more I came to regard Sultan Abdul Ghaffar as one of the great constitutional rulers of the Malay world. Yet he had largely disappeared from our popular historical memory.

My journey therefore became one of recovery: recovering a manuscript, recovering a sovereign and recovering a Malay-Islamic constitutional tradition that had existed long before colonial rule.

I have always believed that certain journeys are written for us long before we understand their purpose. We may make our plans, select our subjects and begin our work, but Allah determines where the path will ultimately lead. This journey has strengthened that belief.

When the time came to consider who would confer my Master’s degree, there was an unusual difficulty. I am the Constitutional Head of the International Islamic University Malaysia. Obviously, I could not confer a degree upon myself!

My beloved husband, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, who had given me his blessing and encouragement to pursue my Master’s degree, graciously supported the proposal that His Royal Highness Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah of Perak should confer the degree upon me. Sultan Nazrin has now graciously consented to do so at the University’s Convocation Ceremony on 28 November 2026.

It is an entirely fitting choice. Sultan Nazrin is one of the foremost royal scholars of our time, a ruler of profound intellect, a respected advocate of knowledge and education, and a Chancellor who understands the enduring importance of scholarship.

At the time the proposal was made, however, neither my husband nor I realised the extraordinary historical connection behind the decision. It never entered our minds. Never in our wildest dreams did we foresee what the family genealogy would reveal.

Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah married Puteri Fatimatuz Zahra of Brunei, also known as Puteri Lamturak. She was a daughter of Sultan Saiful Rijal, one of Brunei’s great rulers, who led the defence of his Sultanate against the Spanish during the Castilian War of 1578. The marriage united two important Malay-Muslim royal houses: Pahang and Brunei.

From the marriage of Sultan Abdul Ghaffar and Puteri Fatimatuz Zahra came Raja Abdullah. Raja Abdullah subsequently married a Princess of Perak. Their daughter, Puteri Fatimah Puteh, married Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, the tenth Sultan of Perak. Through this union, the bloodline of Sultan Abdul Ghaffar entered the Royal House of Perak and continued through its succeeding generations.

Sultan Nazrin is therefore a descendant of Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah.

When this realisation came to me, I felt goosebumps. The Sultan who stands at the centre of my thesis, the forgotten Sultan whose constitutional legacy I had spent years recovering, will have his own descendant confer upon me the degree awarded for that research.

The circle is about to close.

The Hukum Kanun Pahang was Sultan Abdul Ghaffar’s legacy to Pahang and to the wider Malay world. More than four centuries later, a descendant of that very Sultan will place into my hands the degree earned through my effort to return his legacy to its rightful place in history.

I could only say: Allahu Akbar.

Surely, this was not something we could have designed. It was not a conclusion I had anticipated when I first opened the manuscript, nor when my husband gave me his blessing to begin my studies. It had never occurred to us when Sultan Nazrin would be invited to confer the degree. Only now has Allah allowed us to see how every part of the journey has been connected.

I have always believed in Divine Decree. Sometimes we understand it only in retrospect. What initially appears to be a series of unrelated decisions suddenly reveals a pattern so precise and so meaningful that one can only bow in gratitude.

This discovery also opened another door into the history of the Malay royal houses. The marriage of Sultan Abdul Ghaffar and Puteri Fatimatuz Zahra connected Pahang with Brunei.

Their son’s marriage connected Pahang and Brunei with Perak. Through later dynastic marriages, the same bloodline extended into the royal houses of Selangor and Johor. Through my husband’s grandmother, Tengku Ampuan Besar Raja Fatimah binti Almarhum Sultan Iskandar Shah Kaddasullah, a Princess of Perak who became Tengku Ampuan Besar of Pahang, the bloodline returned once again to the Pahang Sultanate. Through Her Majesty Raja Zarith Sofiah, a Princess of Perak who became Queen of Johor, the historical relationship between Brunei and Johor was renewed in another generation.

I, too, am part of a dynastic marriage, a Princess of Johor who became the Tengku Ampuan of Pahang. Suddenly, what may appear in history books as a succession of royal marriages becomes something far more significant. Dynastic marriages were not simply private or ceremonial unions. They created networks of kinship that bound the Malay Sultanates together across centuries. They strengthened diplomacy, preserved legitimacy, connected courts and carried bloodlines, traditions and memories from one kingdom to another.

They reveal that the histories of Pahang, Perak, Brunei, Selangor and Johor were never separate stories. They were chapters within a much larger Malay civilisational history. The genealogy allowed me to see the movement of history through human relationships: from Brunei to Pahang, from Pahang to Perak, and through later generations back to Pahang and onward to Selangor and Johor.

Blood travelled. Memory travelled. Sovereignty travelled. Civilisation endured. This is why the forthcoming conferral of my degree is no longer merely a personal academic occasion. It carries a historical, intellectual, spiritual and dynastic meaning that I could never have imagined at the beginning of my studies.

A descendant of Sultan Abdul Ghaffar will confer a degree upon the person who devoted her thesis to remembering him. The Sultan once described as “just, wise and accomplished, the like of whom none came after him” will, in a sense, be present through his own descendant when his legacy is honoured again.

For me, this has been an epic intellectual and spiritual journey. I began with a manuscript. I found a forgotten Sultan. I uncovered a constitutional legacy. And now, as the journey approaches its ceremonial culmination, I have discovered that the sovereign who will confer my degree carries within him the blood of the very Sultan whose history I sought to restore.

I thank my beloved husband for giving me his blessing to begin this journey, for supporting me throughout my studies, and for giving his wholehearted blessing for Sultan Nazrin to confer the degree upon me.

I thank Sultan Nazrin for graciously consenting to undertake this deeply meaningful duty. To receive the degree from a royal scholar of his stature will already be a great honour. To receive it from a descendant of Sultan Abdul Ghaffar will make the moment truly historic.

Above all, I thank Allah for granting me the opportunity, strength and perseverance to undertake this work. At this stage of my life, He opened the door to knowledge and allowed me to rediscover not only the Hukum Kanun Pahang, but also the student, historian and scholar within myself.

Perhaps this was never simply my journey. Perhaps I was merely entrusted with it.

Sultan Abdul Ghaffar Muhyiddin Shah left Pahang a legacy. Perak preserved his bloodline. The other Malay royal houses carried that lineage across generations. More than four centuries later, history is bringing his legacy and his descendants together again.

A forgotten Sultan has been remembered and returned to the centre of his own history.

And so, with humility, gratitude and a heart still filled with wonder, I offer the fruits of this extraordinary journey:

To Pahang and Perak, I give you your history. - FMT

The Tengku Ampuan of Pahang, Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah, holds a master’s degree from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC), International Islamic University Malaysia.