Page 18 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

A SHORT HISTORY OF PATANI 9

she was either earlier or later, a situation productive of mixed results.
On the one hand, Patani probably was the object of renewed pressures
from her Malay neighbours to the south, while, on the other hand, her
foreign trade certainly expanded. Shortly after the 1564 rebellion, from
which Mudhaffar never returned, the HP states that news of the Sultan’s
death and the depopulation of Patani reached Palembang in South
Sumatra, and two Palembang attacks on Patani ensued.38 Nothing in
Malay or Thai sources confirms such events with respect to Palembang;
but there are numerous references to Achehnese, Aru, and Johore attacks
on the other chief centres in the Thai portion of the peninsula during
this period, up to and beyond the turn of the century.39 The sources
preclude accurate dating of most of these episodes, but they all fit well
within the period when Ayudhya was preoccupied with the military
threat of Burma and Cambodia.
Not long before the death of Manzur Syah in 1572, the king decided
to send a mission of homage to Siam, in part “so that We may hear
some news of Our brother who stayed behind in Siam” (Mudhaffar
Syah), and in part “according to the tradition of his elder brother when
he used to pay homage to the Phracao [King of Ayudhya].” 40 Given
Patani’s recent rebellion, it is not surprising that none of Sultan Manzur
Syah’s servants wished to undertake a mission to the Thai capital; yet it
is probable that troubles with its southern neighbours and commercial
competitors led Patani to seek an accommodation with the Thai, parti­
cularly when after 1571 Ayudhya began to recover following the return
of Prince Naresuan from Burma.41

INTERNAL POLITICS
At the death of Manzur Syah in 1572, Patani entered upon a period
of difficult internal politics. In line for the throne at that time were the
eight surviving children of Sultans Mudhaffar Syah and Manzur Syah.
Two of Mudhaffar’s children still were living, Raja Bambang, his son
by a secondary wife, who was born in ca. 1533 and must have been
39 years old in 1572; and a posthumous son, Patik Siam, born in 1563,
a month after his father left for Ayudhya, who at the time of the death
of Manzur Syah was nine years old.42 On his deathbed, Manzur ordered

38 Below, Malay text, section 7, see also Chapter VI.
38 RRMNST, p. 95; Prachum phra tamra, 1967; and Si Wijrawat, 1962, pp. 72—77.
40 HP text, pp. 30,32.
41LP, p. 462.
42 HP text, pp. 20,36.