The first Islamic sultanate
In the archipelago.
The tomb of Sultan Malik as-Salih, founder of the Samudera Pasai sultanate, the first known Islamic state in the Indonesian archipelago, in the thirteenth century. Known before his conversion as Meurah Silu, he embraced Islam and took the name Malik as-Salih, and his gravestone bears an Arabic inscription dating his death to 696 AH, 1297 AD, among the oldest dated evidence of Islam in the region. After him Pasai flourished as an international trading port on the Strait of Malacca, visited in the fourteenth century by the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who described in his Rihla its learned sultan, a lover of jurists and gatherings of scholarship. From Pasai, Islam spread to Malacca and across the Malay world. The tomb stands in a small, quiet compound among the fields under a shelter, with stone markers carved in Arabic script and verses, and graves of royal family members nearby. The visit is free, and pilgrims come from Indonesia and Malaysia. Be respectful and dress modestly, and combine the visit with the nearby Samudera Pasai Islamic Museum and the sultanate monument in half a day from Lhokseumawe.
In the archipelago.
Arabic inscription of 696 AH.
Visited and described Pasai.
Beuringin, Samudera district, North Aceh, about 17 km east of Lhokseumawe
Ibn Battuta reached Samudera on his way to China and described its sultan, al-Malik al-Zahir, as one of the most excellent of kings, a Shafi'i who loved jurists and walked to Friday prayers.
