Historical fact and fiction - Al-Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib , 1931- (Johor Bahru, Malaysia : Penerbit UTM Press, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2011)
1. A new interpretion of the story of Merah Silau; historical evidence to prove that the Great Ant is fact and not fiction; the identity of the first Muslim king of Samudra-Pasai; the original Malay derivation of the name Sumatra; the Malay custom of royal succession in the mid-14th century; other historical issues -- 2. New light on the Parameswara; when and why he acquired the Javanese title Parameswara; what his Malay royal title was when he rebelled against Majapahit; and the meaning of that title; when his convertion to Islam took place and where, and the name of the great missionary who converted him; his original Muslim name; his device role, rather than Adityawarman's, in establishing the basis for development of a new Malay kingdom; the founding of Malacca and her original name and it's meaning; the fictitious story of the Melaka tree in the founding of Malacca; the meaning of sejarah and the great man idea of the history -- 3. On Arab identity being based on genealogy and not on ethnicity; the pioneers who brought and spread Islam in the Malay Archipelago in the early as well as the later centuries were Arabs of noble origin chiefly from descendents of 'Ali bin Abi Talib through his son al-Husayn,the grandson of the Holy Prophet; their names and genealogies in Malay, Javanese, Sulu, Moro and Arab (Hadrami) sources; solutions to unsolved problems in the history of Sulu and Mindanao: the true identity of Tuan Masha'ika and Tuhan Maqbalu, and the date of Kabungsuan's arrival in Mindanao; self-evidence and other historical facts that demonstrate South Arabian (Hadramaut) provenance of Islam in the Archipelago; the great missionaries of Islam in the Archipelago in the 12th-16th centuries; the creation of the Malayo-Arabic alphabet and the Jawi script based on the Arab (Hadrami) sound (vocal) system
Includes bibliographical references
In English, and some articles in Arabic
Keywords: Islam -- Brunei -- History; Islam -- Java -- History; Islam -- Malacca -- History; Islam -- Mindanao -- History; Islam -- Sulu -- History; Islam -- Sumatra -- History; Muslim missionaries -- History