Historical figure
Ramadhipati I
Ramadhipati I was a 17th-century king of Cambodia who became a Muslim. He came to the throne in 1642 and converted to Islam that year.[1] The royal chronicles also call him Ibrahim.[2] Endo Masayuki dates his reign from 1642 to 1658, and Magali An Berthon from 1642 to 1649.[1][3]
Trade and conversion
From the 1590s at the latest, Malay merchants came to Cambodia and Laos for rice and forest goods such as deer skins, musk, sappanwood and lacquer. In the 1630s the Dutch East India Company came for the same goods and for rice, and the Dutch kept good relations with the Malay and Chinese merchants there.[1] Endo writes that Ramadhipati I converted by his own choice, to draw closer to the Malay merchants and to the Chinese merchants, half of whom had become Muslims through their dealings with the Malays. In his reading, the alliance with the Muslims also helped keep Cambodia independent of Ayutthaya.[1]
The king married a Malay princess.[3] The royal chronicles report his conversion in the 1640s and say that the officials who converted with him were circumcised.[2]
The Dutch
Relations between the king and the Dutch broke down from 1642 to 1644 over how to deal with the Portuguese in Cambodia.[1] Contact resumed because the king needed the Dutch for cotton cloth made in India, and the Dutch needed Cambodia's rice and forest goods. Malay merchants carried messages between them.[1] Endo writes that in the 1640s and 1650s Cambodia exported more goods than Ayutthaya, above all deer skin and lacquer.[1]
Cham weavers
In his reign Cambodia drew closer to the Cham. The king brought weavers from the Cham communities to his court to make hol, a silk tie-dyed before weaving.[3] Cham weavers also made hol outside the court in the countryside, which helped the technique spread in Cambodia.[3]
See also
References 3
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Southeast Asia: History and Culture 39, Endo Masayuki, The conversion to Islam of Cambodian King Ramadhipati I (reigned 1642 to 1658) and Malay trade networks, seen through the Dutch East India Company (2010; English abstract)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 23:3, Philipp Bruckmayr, The Cham Muslims of Cambodia: From Forgotten Minority to Focal Point of Islamic Internationalism (2006)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Royal College of Art, Magali An Berthon, Silk and Post-Conflict Cambodia: Embodied Practices and Global and Local Dynamics of Heritage and Knowledge Transference (1991-2018) (PhD thesis, October 2021)
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