During this period, Pahang was heavily involved in attempts to rid the peninsula of the various foreign imperial powers; Portugal, the Netherlands and Aceh.

Muzaffar Shah then conceived the idea of checking Ligorian pretensions by attacking the Ligor vassal state, Pahang.

An expedition was organised by Muzaffar's son, Raja Abdullah and was personally led by the Melakan Bendahara Tun Perak with two hundred ships, proceeded to Pahang and conquered it in 1454.

The last ruler of the kingdom, Dewa Sura was captured and carried together with his daughter Putri Wanang Seri to Melaka.

[7] The Sultan of Melaka appointed Sri Bija Diraja Tun Hamzah, the commander of the army in the conquest, as the governor of Pahang, and permitted him the privillege, once he was out of Melakan waters, of using six of the eight instruments that made up nobat band, and of having a pair of fringed umbrellas borne over him.

[12] Accompanied by Tun Hamzah who was appointed Bendahara for the new kingdom, Seri Akar Raja as his Hulubalang, a Penghulu Bendahari, a Temenggung, and a hundred youths and a hundred maidens of noble family, Raja Muhammad proceeded to Pahang where he was installed as sultan around 1470 with the tile Sultan Muhammad Shah.

According to the commentaries of Afonso de Albuquerque, Sultan Mansur of Melaka had, by a daughter of the king of Pahang, a son who was poisoned.

[18][19] Shortly after his accession, he ordered the killing of Tun Telanai, the hereditary chief of neighbouring Terengganu, as he had visited Melaka without his knowledge and paid obeisance to Sultan Alauddin.

[20] In 1488, Sultan Alauddin of Melaka died at Pagoh on the Muar River after being poisoned, it was claimed that the rulers of Pahang and Indragiri were responsible.

Sultan Mahmud, enamoured of the picture of Tun Teja that had been presented to him by his chief, promised any reward, however great, to the man who would abduct the Pahang girl and bring her to Melaka.

The Malay Annals records that Abdul Jamil was the Pahang ruler concerned, but historians such as Linehan and Khoo suggested the events occurred during the reign of his uncle, Sultan Ahmad.

[25] Between 1488 and 1493, Raja Fatimah, a royal daughter of Alauddin of Melaka and a full sister of Sultan Mahmud, had married a Pahang prince.

[26][27] In 1500, the ruler of the Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom, known in Malay tradition as Ligor, invaded Pahang through Kelantan and the Tembeling with a large army, on the instructions of the King of Ayutthaya.

[28] In 1511, the capital of Melaka was attacked and conquered by the Portuguese Empire, prompting a retreat of Sultan Mahmud's court to Pahang by the Penarikan route.

The deposed ruler stayed a year in the country during which time he married one of his daughters, whose mother was a Kelantanese princess, to Sultan Mansur.

[33] Manuel de Faria e Sousa relates that until 1522 the Sultan of Pahang had sided with the Portuguese, but seeing that the tide of fortune had turned against them, he, too became their enemy.

[34] In 1523, the Sultan of Johor again attacked Melaka with the ruler of Pahang as his ally, and gained a victory over the Portuguese in the Muar River.

He proceeded to Pahang, destroyed all the vessels in the river and killed over six hundreds people in retaliation for the assistance given by their ruler to the Sultan of Johor.

During their stay in Pekan, the reigning sultan was killed[38] and a mob attacked their resident and seized their goods which amounted fifty thousand ducats in gold and precious stones alone.

They made representations to the King of Pattani, and he gave them permission to attack Pahang boats in the Kelantan River– then a province of Pattani– to recover goods up to the value what had been lost.

The Portuguese took the king at his word, fitted out an expedition, and proceeded to the Kelantan River where they attacked and captured three junks owned by Pahang merchants, killing seventy four people, with a loss of only three of their men.

[40] Pahang formed part of the force of three hundred sailed-ships and eight thousand men which assembled in the Johor River for a reprisal attack on Pattani, but later negotiations settled the dispute.

According to the Bustan al Salatin, Ahmad II reigned for only a year as he was too young to govern the country and was then replaced by his eldest half-brother, Abdul Ghafur, who had been born to a commoner.

On 7 November 1607, a Dutch warship with Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge onboard dropped anchor at Kuala Pahang.

The ruler emphasized the importance of alliance between Johor and neighbouring states, and added that he would try to provide two thousand men in order to bring the war to a successful conclusion.

From 1629 to 1635, Pahang, operating independently from Sultan Abdul Jalil III appeared determined to oust the Acehnese, allying itself with the Dutch and Portuguese whenever it was convenient to do so.

The Malay Annals state that during the installation of Muhammad Shah as the first sultan in 1470, he was accompanied by Tun Hamzah who was appointed Bendahara for the new kingdom, by Seri Akar Raja as his Hulubalang, a Penghulu Bendahari, and a Temenggung.

The laws as written went through an evolutionary process and were shaped by three main influences, namely the early non-indigenous Hindu/Buddhist tradition, Islam and the indigenous adat.

Since the pre-Melakan era, the inland river-valley routes that crossed through Pahang formed a significant trading network linking the east and west coast of the peninsula.

As described in the 16th century's Portuguese account, gold was still commonly mined in quarries across Pahang and sold in great quantity in Melaka.