[2][3] At the height of the sultanate's power in the 15th century, its capital grew into one of the most important transshipment ports of its time, with territory covering much of the Malay Peninsula, the Riau Islands and a significant portion of the northern coast of Sumatra in present-day Indonesia.

[4] As a bustling international trading port, Malacca emerged as a centre for Islamic learning and dissemination, and encouraged the development of the Malay language, literature and arts.

[7] In 1511, the capital of Malacca fell to the Portuguese Empire, forcing the last Sultan, Mahmud Shah (r. 1488–1511), to retreat south, where his progenies established new ruling dynasties, Johor and Perak.

According to the Malay Annals, a prince from Palembang named Seri Teri Buana who claimed to be a descendant of Alexander the Great and Rajendra Chola I, stayed on Bintan Island for several years before he set sail and landed on Temasek in 1299.

In an effort to revive the fortune of Malayu in Sumatra, in the 1370s, a Malay ruler of Palembang sent an envoy to the court of the first emperor of the newly established Ming dynasty.

Learning of this diplomatic maneuver, King Hayam Wuruk of Majapahit sent an envoy to Nanking and convinced the emperor that Malayu was their vassal, and not an independent country.

Abu Syahid was a weak ruler and his administration was largely controlled by Raja Rokan, a cousin of his mother who stayed in the court of Malacca during his reign.

The two sides clashed in a fierce naval battle in which the more advanced Malaccan navy succeeded in driving off the Siamese, pursuing them to Singapura and forcing them to return home.

The reign of Sultan Muzaffar Shah saw the territorial incorporation of the region between Dindings and Johor, and was the first Malaccan ruler to impose authority over both the western and eastern ends of the Malay Peninsula.

Among the earliest territory ceded to the sultanate was Pahang, with its capital, Inderapura—a massive unexplored land with a large river and abundant source of gold which was ruled by Maharaja Dewa Sura, a relative of the King of Ligor.

After a display of Malaccan military prowess in his court, the king of Majapahit, afraid of losing more territories, agreed to marry off his daughter, Raden Galuh Cendera Kirana to Sultan Mansur Shah and hand over control of Indragiri, Jambi, Tungkal and Siantan to Malacca.

[48] The brief conflict between Malacca and Đại Việt during the reign of Lê Thánh Tông (r. 1460–1497), began shortly after the 1471 Vietnamese invasion of Champa, then already a Muslim kingdom.

[50] An unsubstantiated Chinese account reported that Lê Thánh Tông led 90,000 men on an invasion to Lan Sang but this force was chased away by a Malaccan army that beheaded 30,000 Đại Việt soldiers.

[citation needed] Years later, during the reign of Manuel I, a fidalgo named Diogo Lopes de Sequeira was assigned to analyse trade potential in Madagascar and Malacca.

Because of the dissension between Mahmud Shah and Tun Mutahir, a plot was hatched to kill de Sequeira, imprison his men and capture the Portuguese fleet anchored off the Malacca River.

[54][55] His intention was described in his own words when he arrived to Malacca: If they were only to take "Malaca" out of the hands of the Moors, Cairo and Mecca would be entirely ruined, and Venice would then be able to obtain no spiceries except what her merchants might buy in Portugal.The Portuguese launch their first attack on 25 July 1511, but this was met with failure.

[58] The efforts to propagate Christianity which was also one of the principal aims of Portuguese imperialism did not, meet with much success, primarily because Islam was already strongly entrenched among the local population.

The earlier Srivijayan concept of kingship in which the king's right to rule was based on legitimate lineage still prevailed, and with the coming of Islam, it was reintroduced with the name daulat (sovereignty).

Twice during the reign of Sultan Muzaffar Shah, Tun Perak successfully led Malaccan armed forces in repelling Siamese attacks on Malacca.

The 16th-century Portuguese writer Tomé Pires explicitly mentioned that Parameswara was succeeded by his son, Megat Iskandar Shah who only converted to Islam at age 72.

On the other hand, the Malay Annals noted that it was during the reign of the third ruler Muhammad Shah (r. 1424–1444), that the ruling class and their subjects began accepting Islam.

Islam spread from Malacca to Jambi, Kampar, Bengkalis, Siak, Aru and the Karimun Islands in Sumatra, throughout much of the Malay Peninsula, Java and the Philippines.

[71] Tomé Pires mentions in his Suma Oriental that the rulers of Kampar and Indragiri on the east coast of Sumatra converted to Islam as a result of Sultan Muzaffar Shah's influence and went on to study the religion in Malacca.

Maulana Abu Bakar served in the court of Sultan Mansur Shah and introduced the Kitab Darul Manzum, a theological text translated from the work of an Arab scholar in Mecca.

This rapid progression was attributable to several factors, key among which were its strategic location along one of the world's most important shipping lanes, the Strait of Malacca and the increasing demand for commodities from both the East and the West.

Despite the existence of earlier Muslim kingdoms such as Kedah, Samudra Pasai and Aru, which also possessed well-established ports, none of them came close in challenging Malacca's success in expanding its territory and influence in the region.

[citation needed] The Malacca Sultanate also emerged as the primary base in continuing the historic struggles of its predecessors, Singapura and Srivijaya, against their Java-based rivals.

As a major entrepôt, Malacca attracted Muslim traders from various part of the world and became a centre of Islam, spreading the religion throughout Maritime Southeast Asia.

The advent of Islam coupled with flourishing trade that used Malay as medium of communication, culminated in the domination of Malacca and other succeeding Malay-Muslim sultanates in Maritime Southeast Asia.

As noted by certain scholars, the historic Malay-Javanese rivalry in the region, has persisted into modern times, and continues to shape the diplomatic relations between the Malay-centric Malaysia and the Java-based Indonesia.