BRU N E I CH AP TER ONE Abode of Peace, land of plenty
“When the ship’s crew have moored and gone on shore, it is customary, before they touch upon the question of bartering, for the traders to offer to the king gifts of Chinese food and liquors: it is for this reason that when vessels go to P’o-ni (Brunei), they must take one or two good cooks! On the full moon and the new moon they must also attend the king, and all this for about a month, after which they request to fix the prices of their goods. This being done, drums are beaten, in order to announce to people near and far that permission to trade has been granted.” Arrival at Brunei, described by Zhao Rugua in his Zhu Fan Zhi “Records of
This detailed account by Chinese chronicler Zhao Rugua (Chua Ju Kua) of the diplomatic intricacies between two Asian empires of the time, reflects the role of respect and trust in these early forays into maritime trade. Progressing from strangers to allies, they honoured each other with their hospitality and gifts. Our world has changed, but not our values. While early Bruneians shared with their visitors the pursuit of peace, prosperity and parity, we still present Honours and Decorations today to express our civility and to extend the hand of friendship. These early visitors to Brunei Bay witnessed a scene that is recognisable even today. The Brunei River is a natural resource, home to the residents of the Kampung Ayer water village for at least a thousand years, and it flows through history. “The city of Brunei,” wrote Antonio Pigafetta in 1521, “is built over the water and contains twenty-five thousand fires.” While the world beyond the bay changed, the inlet’s significance as a safe haven endured. Some 300 years after the Chinese junks sailed off with their loads of camphor and cowries, more sailors arrived from the West. Already known then as the Abode of Peace, Brunei Darussalam soon developed a reputation as a land of plenty.
The Italian explorer Pigafetta stepped from his beleaguered ship into the hospitality and splendour of Brunei’s Golden Age. Its sovereign, Sultan Bolkiah, presided over a territory that covered the vast forests that blanket Borneo and reached out across the sea as far as the islands of Luzon and Mindanao in the Philippines. The Venetian traveller chronicled the opulence of the fifth sultan’s court, noting in particular jewels including “two pearls the size of hens eggs”. He also registered the might of Sultan Bolkiah’s armaments, which at 62 cannon outstripped the arsenal of the Castilian fleet with which Pigafetta voyaged, and such worldly sophistication that saw courtiers wearing the latest eyeglasses from Europe. In a passage praising the ‘goodwill’ of Bruneians - a word that echoes time and again throughout foreign accounts of their welcome - Pigafetta describes the generosity of both his hosts and their island home, which nourished travellers with food, water and riches. As well as the finest quality camphor that was once worth more than silver, the forest produced treasure in the form of beeswax, bezoar stone and pepper. The imperial fervour of rival European powers was growing, however, and conflict over Brunei’s provinces broke the serenity of the peaceful abode and soon signalled the demise of its Golden Age.
Into the 19th century, colonial land-grabbing and regional instability left Brunei’s 25th sultan, Omar Ali Saifuddien II, at the mercy of rampant piracy and civil strife. In return for military support, the province of Sarawak was ceded to the English White Rajah James Brooke, whose descendant later claimed North Borneo as well. By 1888, the 27th sultan, Hashim Jalilul Alam Aqamaddin, sought protection from the United Kingdom in an alliance that would endure for almost 100 years. A new century brought a new drive to progress, and Brunei Bay was once again its focus. After a mosque and government buildings were built on reclaimed land on the western shores, the settlement of Brunei Town was declared the national capital. In 1929, the natural world presented its greatest gift yet when prospectors in Seria sunk a bore hole that struck oil. But as the nation embraced its new prosperity with a renaissance spirit, the storm of geo-politics made landfall on Brunei Darussalam, and its strategic location at the heart of the Pacific Theatre of World War II once again placed it onto the world stage.
In December 1941, just eight days after their attack on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese army invaded. The damage to the country’s burgeoning oil infrastructure was devastating; wells were sabotaged in advance of the invasion and then ransacked by the occupiers. Allied aerial bombardment against the Japanese in 1944 destroyed the modest city, prompting one British Administrator to describe, “a shattered ghost town… It was difficult to imagine what [it] had ever been like.” In this land of continuity, though, the waters of the Brunei River continued to flow. After coming to power in 1950, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III forged ahead down a road to recovery, embracing the bounty of fossil fuels to provide his subjects with the opportunity of good health and education. Another legacy stands in the golden-domed mosque that bears his name and still calls the mu’ezzin across the city and out over the bay as far as those ancient waterways of Kampung Ayer. The water village escaped the wrath of war and remains to this day one of the largest stilt settlements in the world. A symbol of the longevity of Brunei Darussalam.
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The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation.
As a small country, both in size and population, our future hinges on the quality of our people. -Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah
BRU N E I CH A P T ER T WO T he Royal House of Bolk iah
In the teeming forests and waters of Brunei Bay, and in the fruitful earth of the nation, it is easy to see that each passing season brings growth. The circle of life in its farms and fisheries nourish the people. Eons of transformation have formed fossil fuels. While the cyclical nature of dynasty has seen the sultanate of Brunei, the House of Bolkiah, pass on the mantle of responsibility and vision for more than 600 years. The coronation in 1968 of Hassanal Bolkiah as the 29th Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan (Head of State) of Brunei Darussalam, marked a moment of global significance, as the incumbent upheld a line of dynastic history that recedes back into legend. The first sultan, Muhammad Shah, founded the dynasty in 1368. Searching for a blessed site for a new settlement for his people, he was so impressed by the natural assets of the great river estuary that he exclaimed ‘Barunah!’, from which Brunei was derived. Chinese texts tell us that the first sultan was already sending trade envoys to the north by 1371 when his name is recorded in a Ming dynasty reference book. Also reputed to have converted to Islam in order to marry the daughter of the King of Temasek (Old Singapore, then part of the sultanate of Johor), Muhammad Shah established both the dynastic and Muslim heritage of Brunei Darussalam.
While the Islamic threads of the nation weave even further back into pre-history, the ties between leader, state and religion were formally knotted with the accession of Sultan Sharif Ali in 1425. A direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who travelled from Taif in what is now Saudi Arabia to marry a Bruneian princess, Sharif Ali shaped the nation: from introducing the epithet ‘Darussalam’, meaning Abode of Peace, to its name; erecting the nation’s first mosque; establishing a legal system based on Islamic principles; and even designing the crest that is still used on the national flag. To reflect both his piety and popularity, Sharif Ali was dubbed Sultan Berkat or the ‘Blessed King’. Brunei Darussalam entered its first Golden Age under the reign of the Blessed Sultan’s grandson, Sultan Bolkiah, who shared his ancestor’s devotion to the art of travel. Like generations of Bruneians and other Muslims before him, the fifth sultan avidly sailed in search of knowledge and commerce. En route, he built an empire and another legend. While he is supposed to have marked his geographical conquests by planting a peppercorn at each new landing place, he was also a man of refinement, travelling with an orchestra that earned him the nickname Nakhoda Ragam or ‘The Singing Captain’. His song died when his ship went down en route from Java, but his life is still commemorated nearly 500 years later during a Ramadan ceremony at his tomb when the Qu’ran is recited continuously by a team of readers.
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A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. Mahatma Gandhi‘
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When Antonio Pigafetta sailed into Brunei Bay in 1521 to be greeted by the next sultan, Abdul Kahar, his written account gives us both an insight into the life of the court and a dark hint of the strife that would characterise the colonial era. Sultan Abdul Kahar ruled over a splendid kingdom of peace and opulence, and Pigafetta wondered at the lavish decor, costumes and customs. However, the visit came to a bloody end when the Spanish fleet suspected they had been lured into the protected inlet in order to be attacked and responded with force, capturing a number of Bruneians who were later sold as slaves. The confusion and cruelty of the encounter was to be repeated by waves of imperialist forces in the centuries to come. While another Spanish traveller, Alonso Beltran, recorded for us in 1578 his account of a wonder of Bruneian architecture, “a mosque five stories high built on the water�, it was his own fleet that later destroyed the magnificent construction with its five-layered roof to represent the five pillars of Islam.
After negotiating a new constitution with the British, Brunei Darussalam was once again autonomous, with power over finance and administration returning to the sovereignty of the Yang Di-Pertuan. As a result, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III is credited as a renaissance man, the architect of both the state and its capital city. His interests as an artist even extended to designing medals, including some of those used to honour the esteemed officials who assisted the Sultan in delivering his vision of a modern nation using the prosperity that was once again bestowed on Brunei Darussalam by nature. Upon his abdication in 1967, the retiring sultan took the title ‘Seri Begawan’ or Blessed One. Such was the affection for Omar Ali Saifuddien III, that the capital city was renamed in his honour as Bandar Seri Begawan, a fitting tribute for the man who turned a small bombed-out town into a thriving city of commercial and religious significance. When two coloured flags were hoisted in the hills above the capital in 1968, in accordance with centuries-old tradition, the people of Brunei Darussalam understood that a new sultan would soon be coronated. That day came on 1st August of that year, when Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah was presented with an artefact that has come to symbolise the sultanate; a keris or ceremonial dagger called Si-Naga, which legend tells was made from an iron bar presented to the incumbent’s name sake, Sultan Bolkiah, some half-century earlier. Solemn traditions continued to honour the legacy of the dynasty, as the Sultan was accompanied to the investiture by a guard of Bearers of the Royal Regalia, to the ceremonial hall of the Lapau. Dignitaries from many nations witnessed the wazirs or ministers swear allegiance to the Sultan, in a ceremony that reflects the significance of
The political landscape of Brunei Darussalam slowly changed, its empire eroded by centuries of conflict, but traditional lifestyles and values stand like the foundations of a Kampung Ayer house, hidden but strong beneath the water. When the 28th ruler, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III, surveyed a devastated town after he came to power in the post-war landscape of 1950, he saw an opportunity for renewal. Just as the traditions and regalia of the sultanate were admired by the earliest Chinese traders to Brunei’s halcyon shores or the first European explorers inside its Golden Age courts, so the modern world watched in fascination as Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah assumed the mantle of an ancient royal house. Almost half a century later, the honours given and received by the House of Bolkiah continue to pay tribute to those who serve their country, dignify those who make sacrifices, and celebrate role models. It is through these symbols and ceremonies that we connect the glories of the distant past to the aspirations for an unforeseeable future.