Lexington Books
Pages: 252
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-0-7391-6842-4 • Hardback • November 2012 • $128.00 • (£98.00)
978-0-7391-6843-1 • eBook • November 2012 • $121.50 • (£94.00)
Maziar Mozaffari Falarti is in the Department of South, East Asia and Oceanian Studies at the University of Tehran.
List of Maps & Illustrations
Foreword (Professor C. A. Trocki)
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: From Raja to Sultan: The Islamic Conversion of the Tantric Malay Ruler
Chapter 2: The Malay Ethos: The Sultan and his Subjects
Chapter 3: Controlling Kedah’s maritime lines of communication: The Sultan and the Raja di-laut, or Sea Lords
Chapter 4: Bay to Gulf or Gulf to Bay: the Sultan and the trans-peninsular routes of Kedah
Conclusion
Bibliography
The author successfully portrays the historical world of Kedah. . .The author makes important points; for example, he points out that the historical acceptance of foreign rulers for the Malays are well explained by the covenant that existed between the ruler and subject, even when a sovereign was not Malay. . . .The methodology of this book is not only applicable to restructuring the historical world but also in foreseeing and interpreting the future.
— Pacific Affairs
Maziar Mozaffari Falarti's book is different: a radically novel presentation of the history of Kedah, one of the oldest powerhouses on the Malay Peninsula, inspired by a wide variety of texts that have been unknown and inaccesible to other historians of Malaysia. The author manages to make sense of Kedah in a global context, and in the process, leads our understanding of the dynamics of might and right in the Malay world and beyond along new vistas. Impressive and exciting work.
— Hendrik M. J. Maier, Luce Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Riverside