Note 4 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

Missionaries must also, however, have come to the Malay Archipelago from the south of India, judging from certain peculiarities of Muhammadan theology adopted by the islanders. Most of the Musalmans of the Archipelago belong to the Shāfiʻiyyah sect, which is at the present day predominant on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts, as was the case also about the middle of the fourteenth century when Ibn Baṭūṭah visited these parts.4 So when we consider that the Muhammadans of the neighbouring countries belong to the Ḥanafiyyah sect, we can only explain the prevalence of Shāfiʻiyyah teachings by assuming them to have been brought thither from the Malabar coast, the ports of which were frequented by merchants from Java, as well as from China, Yaman and Persia.5 From India, too, or from Persia, must have come the Shīʻism, of which traces are still found in Java and Sumatra. From Ibn Baṭūṭah we learn that the Muhammadan Sultan of Samudra had entered into friendly relations with the court of Dehli, and among the learned doctors of the law whom this devout prince especially favoured, there were two of Persian origin, the one coming from Shiraz and the other from Ispahan.6 But long before this time merchants from the Deccan, through whose hands passed the trade between the Musalman states of India and the Malay Archipelago, had established themselves in large numbers in the trading ports of these islands, where they sowed the seed of the new religion.7