Malay Singaporeans () are Singaporeans of Malay ancestry, including those from the Malay Archipelago. As of the 2020 census, they constitute approximately 13.5% of the country's residents, making them the second-largest ethnic group in Singapore. Under the Constitution of Singapore, they are recognised by the government as the indigenous people of the country, with Malay as the national and official language of Singapore.
At the time of the arrival of British colonial official Stamford Raffles in 1819, the estimated population of Malays on the island was approximately 1,000. Another estimate suggests that at the time of Raffles' arrival, the population comprised around 120 Malays, 30 Chinese and some local indigenous Orang Laut tribes. From the nineteenth century until World War II, the Malays generally enjoyed favourable treatment, as they were not resettled for labour and their traditional lifestyles were largely left undisturbed. However, as the British required coolies to support their colonial enterprises, immigration rates among Malays remained relatively low compared to Indians and Chinese immigrants. The latter group notably became the majority ethnic population by the mid-nineteenth century.
A significant portion of Malay Singaporeans trace their roots to nearby regions throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, such as the Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and the Riau Islands. Many Malay Singaporeans originally belonged to different ethnic groups before assimilating into the Malay community. This migration has contributed to the rich cultural heritage of Malays in Singapore. These groups share common culture, customs, language and religion with the wider Singaporean society. They actively participate in all aspects of Singaporean life, with independent representation in areas such as media, politics and sports.
History of the Malay kings of Singapore
The seventeenth-century Malay chronicle, the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals, tells of the founding of a great trading city on the island of Temasek in 1299 AD by a prince from Palembang. Palembang was then the capital of the diminishing Srivijaya Empire. The prince, Sri Tri Buana, (also known as Sang Nila Utama) was said to be a descendant of Alexander the Great and an Indian princess called Shahru Al-Bariyah. Legend states that he renamed the city Singapura ("lion city") after sighting a strange beast that he took to be a lion, although there is no real historical evidence of this.
In the mid-14th century, Singapura suffered raids by the expanding Javanese Majapahit Empire to the south and the emerging Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya to the north, both claiming the island as a vassal state at several points in time. Around 1388, the ruler of Palembang, Parameswara, came to Singapore to flee from Majapahit control. He murdered the king and seized power, but it was a futile act. The Srivijaya Empire, already in decline, finally met its end when Majapahit attacked its capital Palembang in 1391. In 1396, Majapahit or Ayutthaya forces drove out Parameswara, who fled northward and founded kingdom of Malacca in 1400.
When the Portuguese captured Malacca in 1511, the last Malaccan sultan, Mahmud Shah, fled to Johor, where he established the new Johor Sultanate. Singapura became part of this sultanate. In 1613, however, the Portuguese reportedly burning down a trading outpost at the mouth of the river and Singapura passed into history.
In 1718, Raja Kecil of Minangkabau-Siak who claimed he was the posthumous son of Sultan Mahmud II, took control of the Johor Sultanate. Four years later, Raja Kecil was dethroned by Raja Sulaiman's supporters with the assistance of the Bugis. The territory controlled by the Johor-Riau Sultanate in the late eighteenth century still included Singapore as part of its territory. The sultanate had become increasingly weakened by a division into a Malay faction, which controlled the Malay peninsula and Singapore vis a vis a Bugis faction which controlled the Riau Archipelago. When Sultan Mahmud Riayat Shah III died in 1811, the Bugis had proclaimed the younger of his two sons, Abdul Rahman, as sultan instead of the elder son, Tengku Long. While the sultan was the nominal ruler of his domain, senior officials actually governed the sultanate. In control of Singapore and the neighbouring islands was Temenggong Abdul Rahman, Tengku Long's father-in-law. In 1818, he and some of his followers left Riau for Singapore shortly after the Dutch signed a treaty with the Sultan Abdul Rahman, allowing the Dutch to station a garrison at Riau.
In 1819, Tengku Long signed a treaty with the British led by Sir Stamford Raffles. In exchange for British protection and recognising him as Sultan of Johor, Tengku Long agreed to allow the British to establish a trading post in Singapore. Proclaimed as Sultan Hussein Shah, he became the Sultan of Johor. Hussein Shah's claim to be Sultan of Johor and Singapore was by all accounts not recognised by the Malay rulers and was only a nominal title. Sultan Hussein on his part, did not pursue any active claim to his sovereignty rights over Johor, spent much of his time at his residence in Istana Kampong Glam until he moved to Malacca in 1834.
In 1835, Sultan Hussein Shah died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Tengku Ali. In 1855, due to his debts caused by his extravagant lifestyle, Sultan Ali formally ceded his sovereignty rights of Johor to Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim with the exception of the Kesang territory in Muar, plus an annual stipend for his family. Thus, Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim was made the de facto Maharajah of Johor until his death in 1862. He was succeeded by his son Abu Bakar, who eventually went on to become the Sultan of modern Johor in 1886.
After Sultan Ali's death in 1877, disputes broke out among his descendants. In the late 1890s, they went to court, where it was decided that no one in the family had the rights as the successor to the sultanate and the land at Kampong Glam should revert to the state [Tengku Mahmud vs. Tengku Ali, Straits Settlements Laws Report 1897 (Vol. 5)].
Malay kings of Singapore (1299–1396 AD) Sri Tri Buana (Sang Nila Utama) (1299–1347) Raja Kecil Besar (Paduka Seri Wikrama Wira) (1348–1362 (?) ) Raja Muda (Paduka Seri Rana Wikrama) (1363–1374 (?) ) Damia Raja (Paduka Seri Maharaja) (1375–1386 (?) ) Parameswara (Paduka Seri Iskandar Shah) (1388 or 1390 (?) –1397)
Malay kings of Singapore (1699–1835 AD) Bendahara Sultan Abdul Jalil Riayat Shah IV (Sultan of Riau-Lingga-Pahang) (1699–1718) Abdul Jalil Rahmat Shah (Raja Kecil) (Sultan of Riau-Lingga-Pahang) (1718–1722) Sultan Sulaiman Badrul Al-Alam Shah (Sultan of Johor-Riau-Lingga-Pahang) (1722–1760) Sultan Mahmud Riayat Shah III (Sultan of Johor-Pahang) (1761–1812) Sultan Abdul Rahman (Sultan of Lingga) (1812–1832) (Placed on the throne instead of his older brother Hussein, supported by Bugis) Sultan Hussein Shah (Sultan of Johor) (1819–1835) (Recognised by the British as the rightful Sultan of Johor.)
Migration of Malays to Singapore after 1819
When Raffles arrived in Singapore, thousands of Malays were estimated living in the surrounding areas. The waters of Telok Blangah, the Kallang River and other rivers had long been home to the Orang Laut or Sea Nomads. There were also Malay settlements along the Kallang River Basin and the Singapore River. Turnbull reported that about 1,000 people lived in Singapore, including approximately 500 Orang Kallang, 200 Orang Seletar, 150 Orang Gelam, 100 Orang Laut and 20 to 30 Malays who were followers of Temenggong Abdul Rahman.
The first census taken in 1824 revealed that Malays (including the Bugis) comprised 60.9 per cent of the total population of 10,683. The 1826 census recorded 4,790 Malays, 1,242 Bugis, and 267 Javanese out of a total population of 13,750.
+ Resident population of early Singapore Ethnic Group Population18241826Europeans7487Armenians1619Arabs1526Malays 4,580 4,790Bugis 1,925 1,242Javanese 188 267Indians 7561,021Others12Total10,68313,750
Malay subgroups
Most Singaporean Malays are descended from different ethnic groups that are found throughout the Malay Archipelago. Most notable are the indigenous tribes of the Orang Laut, Local Malays, Javanese, Boyanese, Bugis, Minangkabau, Banjarese, Sundanese, and Bataks.
Orang Laut (Sea Nomads)
According to Sopher (1977), the Orang Kallang, Orang Seletar, Orang Selat and Orang Gelam were the Orang Laut that lived in Singapore. The Orang Kallang (also called the Orang Biduanda Kallang) lived in the swampy areas in the Kallang River. They lived on boats and sustained their lives by fishing and collecting other materials from the forests. After 1819, they were relocated by Temenggong Abdul Rahman to the northern Singapore Straits at Sungai Pulau. In 1847 most of the Orang Kallang were wiped out by a smallpox epidemic.
The Orang Seletar lived in the river swamps and the small islands surrounding mainland Singapore. They would often gather in the coastal areas, especially on the estuary of the Seletar River. They lived a nomadic lifestyle until the 1850s when they started living on land and followed the lifestyles of others living in Singapore.
The Orang Selat lived in the harbour waters of Keppel Singapore. They were believed to have traversed the waters of Keppel Harbour since the early 16th century, making them one of the earliest settlers of the island. They sold fish and fruits to the trading vessels that passed the area.
The Orang Gelam came from a tribe in Batam Island. They were brought by the Temenggong of Johor together with a group of his followers to establish a settlement in the first decade of the 19th century. Many of the Orang Gelam who lived along the Singapore River served as boatmen for merchant ships while their womenfolk were fruit sellers on boats.
The Orang Laut differed from the Malays in that they lived a nomadic lifestyle and lived at sea in their boats whereas the Malays lived in settlements in the villages on the land. One example of an Orang Laut is Mohammed Abdul Rahmah.
Malays proper (Johor–Riau)
When Raffles came to Singapore, there were already hundreds of indigenous Malays and orang laut living there. They were made up of the nobility that was headed by the Temenggong, the palace officials and his followers as well as the Orang Laut. Subsequently, the numbers increased with the arrivals of other Malays from Malaya and the Malay Archipelago.
In a matter of several months, hundreds of Malays from Malacca came to Singapore, encouraged by the British who wanted to develop Singapore as a centre for trade and administration.(Siebel, 1961:27) When Singapore became more developed and there were better economic opportunities, many Malays from Johor, Riau Islands, Sumatra, Penang and Malacca came to Singapore.(Roff, 1967:33; Census 1931:72) Many of these Malays lived in the towns and worked there.(Siebel, 1961:35) The census for 1931 showed that the total number of Malay men working here were as many as 11,290. Out of this number, 18% worked as fishermen and as many as 12% lived by farming the land.
In the 1930s and 1950s, many Malay residents from Malaya were working in the British uniformed services. In 1957 alone, there were more than 10,000 Malays working in the uniform services because the British preferred them to the Javanese or Malays from Indonesia (Betts, 1975:41; Djamour, 1959:5). However, during the period 1957–1970, most of them returned to Malaysia when their terms of services ended.
Javanese