Semalam saya membelek-belek almari lama rumah orang tuaku. Sudah sekian lama tidak digunakan dan hampir-hampir usang dimamah bubuk dan anai-anai. Aku terpandang sebuah buku yang menarik minatku untuk membacanya. 'Sejarah Islam dan Perjuangan Ulama Sabah'. Wah, ini buku yang baik dan amat bermakna isi kandungannya untuk dibaca. Namun perhatianku lebih tertumpu kepada isi kandungannya yang banyak merujuk penulisan-penulisan pengembara asing dan ia mengimbau kembali sejarah lampau betapa bumi sabah yang bertuah ini merupakan pusat Islam terkenal dan telah mengalami proses ketamadunan yang tinggi walaupun akhirnya punah-ranah dimusnah oleh penjajah. Berikut apa yang saya dapati tertulis didalamnya:
REKOD PENULISAN PENULIS NEGARA ASING
TENTANG SABAH BORNEO
The bay of Sbuza penetrates, they
say, for fifty parasangs into the islands. It is a river much larger than the
Tigris at Basra, its waters are sweet like those of the Tigris. There is no bay
larger in the whole island. The tide is felt every twelve hours. Crocodile are
found there, but those which are in the part which adjoins the houses do no
harm, having been bewitched, as we have said, whilst those parts situated away
from the buildings are unapproachable, by reason of these creatures.Some houses are built on land,
but the greater part float on the water, sustained by pieces of wood tied
together to form rafts, which last forever. They do this fear of fire, for
their houses, being built of wood, are much subject to conflagration, and fire
once having taken hold, burns furiously.Placed on the water, the houses
are better protected: if fire breaks out at one point, each householder can cut
his moorings and make off, going away to settle somewhere else far from the
blaze. If he is unhappy with some particular place, he can remove to a
different quarter of the town.
(Buku: ajaib al Hind, Captain Burzuq Ibn Sahriyar,
Ramhormoz)
The king of P’o-ni is in a hote
land in the ocean. But its King was enlightened to become loyal and submissive.
Accompanied by interpreters, he came to our court with his wife, son, brothers
and officials. He kowtowed to us, saying, the emperor is like the sky to me,
granting me livelihood and leisure, we replied, in our reign, we treat all
peoples equally. But we deficient’s in virtue, and our merits are not as you
have said. We note that the King undertook a dangerous voyage, sustained only
by his sincerity. In our record of foreign rulers who had come to declare their
allegiance in spite of great difficulties, there had never been one King whose
loyalty was as firm as gold.In this he was indeed peerless
among the rulers of the south-west. We hereby designate his high mountain to
guard the Kingdom, and this inscription to commemorate the King’s virtues. May
the King’s virtues be known far and wide, and may his Kingdom enjoy peace unto
many thousand years, and glory be to the Ming Dynasty.
(Catatan penulis-penulis China pada 1408M)
In September 1408, King
Ma-na-je-chia-na of P’o-ni led a tribute mission to the court of the Yong-lo
emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
(Catatan Istana kerajaan Ming, China)
Borney (Borneo) population is
around 25,000 people.
(Penulis First voyage around the world: Antonia
Pigafeta)
The island of Borney, where at
the present rules the King Sultan Nula Alan (Arabic Nur-al-‘Alam) who by
another name being the prince called Sultan Lixar, is two hundred eighty
leagues to the southeast from the city of Manila. It is an island which runs
northeast-southeast. It is large, for it is more than three hundred fifty
leagues in circumference. Discovered from Manila at the beginning of it; a cape which they called tanon
salamangayao, which is to say, Cape of Corsairs. The said King has his seat and
house and all his ancestors have had it
on a river of Borney, from where the said island and his Kingdom take the name.
(Penulis
Sepanyol: Perez Dasmarinas Semasa berada di Manila 1590-1593)
The other kind of people who are
Yslanes, which is to say, people who eat no pork, whom we call borneyes. These
are the people that keep the Alcoran, who are foreigners, and their origin and
descent is the following.As told by them, it begins three
hundred years, a little more or less, when from the parts and provinces of the
Malaya of the Malaya language which lie toward Meca a lord of city called
Cauin. They have a mosque, which they call masiquit; and there they come to
commend themselves to Allah, which they call God, and Mahoma, who they say is
His procurator so that with God they do not urge much.The common people go to the
mosque and the women never go but it is the men. They have water at the door of
the mosque. With that they wash their feet. There are three kinds of religious
although they differ not in habit from those who are not. They call these
catif. Of these three kinds of catif basar.
(Penulis
Sepanyol: Perez Dasmarinas Semasa berada di Manila 1590-1593)
The King has a house of money
which he has inside his fort, and the money they make is
smelted...and it is not of silver or of
gold...although anciently they used it of siver, each one of which had by
weight four and one-half reales.They called this money batguin,
which had the stamp of the king, which is of this manner on the one side and on
the other side is; and because the foreign people who for dealing and
contracting came there took the money with them from the Kingdom, they have no
moneys of small value.The common people went indebted
and poor together with all this money and squandered it, and he ordered to make
two kinds of money cast moulds.
Each one is complete in itself. The one is of the size of half a real
and of tin or lead which they call pitis. They have a value of three hundred
twenty-two tomines which among them they call a lacsa. The other money is of
copper mixed with silver in the manner of blancas of castile except that they
are thicker and of double weight. These moneys they call paco. He gave a value
of ten for two reales so that each paco dealt and contracted would not take the
money from the Kingdom without using for the things that there are in the said
Kingdom.They sell and buy with the
weights and measures stamped with the stamp of the judge of the sea in whose
charge it is for being the judges of the commodities. The weight with which
they weight things of much weight are in the manner of romanas. They call these
weights chinantas. The largest
weight
they have is bahala. This bahala is divided into three parts, each part they
call pico. A pico is divided into ten parts, and each parts they call a
chinanta.Each chinanta is divided into ten
parts,
and each part they call a cati.
Each cati is divided into sixteen parts; each part they call tae.Each tae is divided into three
parts; each part is called batguin weighs precisely four and one-half reales of
castiles. this kind of weighing is understood in all kinds of weights. The gold
themselves will weight well by this count and weights; and for when it is a
thing of little weight which has to be weighed.They divided the tae into sixteen
parts they call taes. Each taes they divided into three parts and each part
they call cupa. Also things of little weight with weights of balances which are
called itinan. The measure they called ganta will contain as much and a half as
that of Manila. They measure full all the things that they can fill in measure
and not levelled; and they are not people who have vara, and thus they have it
not.
(Penulis Sepanyol: Perez Dasmarinas Semasa
berada di Manila 1590-1593)
The inhibitants of these parts of
the river are different from Brunei, though also Mohammedans and are called Orang
Sungai. [Orang sungai = Jelama sungai = Bisayah = Bisaya]
(Penulis: John White Head)
Membacanya menjadikan diri ini lebih bertaqwa kepada Allah subhanahuwa ta'ala kerana, sejarah lampau datuk-nenek-moyang kita telah lalui dan kehidupan yang serba-serbi berpancaroba menjadikan kita lebih bertamadun dan bersatu.
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