-- its implication of polytheism would even be punishable by death under Islamic Law. Indeed, it only occurs once, and that with a ruler whose name otherwise seems to put more emphasis on the Indian elements.At the beginning of the line of the Sult.ans of Malacca, it was Siam that exerted influence. But then in 1409 the Chinese arrived. Admiral Zheng He and his great fleets, projecting the new power of the Ming Dynasty, established a base at Malacca, and the Sult.an became a tributary of China. He even sailed to China to pay homage to the Emperor. A Chinese cantonment protected, stored, and shipped goods from China and those obtained on the further expeditions into the Indian Ocean. On nearby Sumatra, a Chinese governor was installed at Palembang after a Chinese pirate was defeated, captured, and sent back to China for execution. In northern Sumatra (near Acheh), troops were put ashore to install one king and execute his rival. A king in Ceylon was defeated and sent to China, but then the Emperor returned him to his kingdom (thought he evidently was unable to recover his throne). Some of Zheng He's detachments went into the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and even down the coast of Africa, perhaps as far as Zanzibar. This impressive exercise ended abruptly in 1433, when the xenophobic Confucian faction became dominant at the Chinese Court. China was cut off from the external world and began to lose its ability to deal with that world, either culturally, economically, or militarily.Arriving next by sea and by trade would be the Portuguese (led by Afonso de Albuquerque), Dutch, and British, all of whom were also interested in secure bases for their activities. So Malacca became a European colony. Under the British, it became part of the Straits Settlements, which was a string of cities along, indeed, the Straits of Malacca, between Malaya and Sumatra. British Malaya was otherwise a group of client kingdoms, including some whose rulers were actually descendants of the Sult.ans of Malacca.In 1972 I was looking through some books that were on sale at the University of Hawai'i bookstore. Among them I found two small pamphlets that looked like children's primers written entirely in the Arabic alphabet. I had no idea what these could be, or what they were doing in Hawai'i. They were, however, published in Singapore by the "Malaysia Press Ltd." This was the clue; for, as I soon learned, and as is generally characteristic in Mediaeval Islamic converts, the Arabic alphabet is adopted to write the local language, which was Malay. This grew up as a trade language of Malaya and Indonesia, THE SULT.ANSOF ACHEH/ATJEH/ACEH'Inayat Shahc.1450-?Muz.affar Shahd.1497Shams ad-Din Shah?-c.1496'Ali Mughayat Shahc.1496-c.1530S.alah. ad-Dinc.1530-c.1537Ri'ayat Shah 'Ala' ad-Din al-Qahharc.1537-1571appeals to Ottoman Sult.an for aid against the Portuguese, 1563'Ali/H.usayn Ri'ayat Shah1571-1579Sultan Muda1579Sultan Shri 'Alam1579Zayn al-'Abidin1579Mans.ur Shah 'Ala' ad-Din1579-c.1586'Ali Ri'ayat Shah Raja Buyungc.1586-c.1588Ri'ayat Shah 'Ala' ad-Dinc.1588-1604'Ali Ri'ayat Shah/Sultan Muda1604-1607Iskandar Muda Makota 'Alam1607-1636Mughayat Shah, Iskandar Thani 'Ala' ad-Din1636-1641S.afiyyat ad-Din Shah Taj al-'Alam 1641-1675Naqiyyat ad-Din Sha'h Nur al-'Alam 1675-1678Zakiyyat ad-Din Shah 'Inayat 1678-1688Zinat ad-Din Kamalat Shah 1688-1699Sharif Ha'shim Jamal ad-Din