ABSTRACT
The Johor-Riau Empire is considered by the vast majority of historians to represent one of the so-called successor polities of the Melaka Sultanate which succumbed to the Portuguese in 1511. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this is also the understanding clearly conveyed to the early European colonial powers that at times entered into contracts of commerce and forged military alliances. On deeper analysis, however, it is evident that Johor’s primacy as a successor polity of Melaka and an heir apparent of the Melaka sultan’s daulat (mystical right to rule) did not remain uncontested. Among the most noteworthy contenders during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were Aceh and Perak whose rulers jockeyed to improve their name and reputation (nama) and thus also for a higher or improved standing among a clearly fluid hierarchy of rulers in Asia.1
