Terengganu Sultanate

Origins

The Terengganu Inscription Stone of the early 14th century shows Islam there centuries earlier, but the present sultanate was founded in 1708 by Tun Zainal Abidin, a son of the Johor Sultanate's Bendahara family, who became Sultan Zainal Abidin I. Terengganu later sent the bunga mas, gold and silver trees, as tribute to Siam.

Rule and society

The sultans governed a coastal society of fishermen, boat builders, weavers and traders in pepper and gold. Sultan Baginda Omar in the 19th century strengthened royal power and encouraged crafts such as brocade weaving. Islamic scholarship flourished, and the court resisted foreign advisers longer than most Malay states.

To the present

The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 transferred Terengganu to British protection; it accepted a British adviser in 1919 and joined the Unfederated Malay States. After Japanese and Thai occupation it entered the Federation of Malaya and became a state of Malaysia, its sultan one of the nine rulers who elect the king.