[4] Abubakar bin Abirin bore the titles Sayyid (alternatively spelled Saiyid, Sayyed, Seyyed, Sayed, Seyed, Syed, Seyd) and Shareef an honorific that denotes he was an accepted descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through both the Imams Hassan and Hussain.
The most notable among these self-proclaimed heirs have been engaged in a legal battle with Malaysia regarding payments related to the 1878 agreement between then Sultan of Sulu and British commercial syndicate of Alfred Dent and Gustav Baron de Overbeck, which transpired into the British North Borneo Company.
As territories in the former North Borneo currently fall in the Malaysian region of Sabah, Malaysia continued to make the payments till the 2013 Lahad Datu Satndoff.
Malaysia filed a suit with the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, which annulled the appointment of Stampa.
On February 28 2022, Stampa ruled in favor of the alleged descendants of sultan and ordered Malaysia to pay US$14.92 billion in settlement to the litigants.