Note 76 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

Islam seems first to have begun to make progress here in the fifteenth century. A heathen king of Tidor yielded to the persuasions of an Arab, named Shayk͟h Manṣūr, and embraced Islam together with many of his subjects. The heathen name of the king, Tjireli Lijatu, was changed to that of Jamāl al-Dīn, while his eldest son was called Manṣūr after their Arab teacher.76 It was the latter prince who entertained the Spanish expedition that reached Tidor in 1521, shortly after the ill-fated death of Magellan. Pigafetta, the historian of this expedition, calls him Raia Sultan Mauzor, and says that he was more than fifty-five years old, and that not fifty years had passed since the Muhammadans came to live in these islands.77