Sunan Gunungjati

Gunungjati was born Syarif Hidayatullah (Arabic: شريف هداية الله Sharīf Hidāyah Allāh) in 1448 CE, the child of a dynastic union between Syarif Abdullah Maulana Huda, an Egyptian of Hashemite descent, and Nyai Rara Santang, daughter of Prabu Siliwangi, King of Sunda (Pajajaran).

The many conflicting stories about Sunan Gunungjati led some scholars to conclude that he might be a conflation of more than one historical figure.

[1] Syarif Hidayatullah studied Islam under the guidance of venerated scholars in Egypt, some of whom probably included leading Sufis, during his fourteen years of peregrinations overseas.

He used his kingship — imbued with the twin authority of his paternal Hashemite lineage and his maternal royal ancestry — to propagate Islam all along the Pesisir, or northern coast of Java.

[citation needed] In dawah (Islamic proselytization), Gunungjati upheld the strict methodology propagated by Middle Eastern sheikhs, as well as developing basic infrastructure and building roads connecting isolated areas of the province.