The Malay Raja: A Study of Malay Political Culture in East Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula in the Early Nineteenth Century / Anthony Crothers Milner

A thesis presented by the author as part of his D.Phil. at Cornell. It is a challenge to assumptions of European nineteenth century observers of the Malay political scene who thought Malay rule chaotic because the sultans did not appear to have much real economic or military power. Using Malay sources, Milner asserts that such power was not the objective of a raja's rule. Instead the relationship between him and his subject was based more on a moral and religious basis enshrined in ceremony. 252 pages.