Daripada Peradaban Kepada Infrastruktur: Kesan Kuasa Perdagangan Barat Terhadap Tamadun Maritim Pahang, Abad ke-19 hingga ke-20/ From Civilisation to Infrastructure: The Impact of Western Commercial Powers on Pahang’s Maritime Civilisation, 19th to 20th Centuries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11113/umran2026.13n3.889Keywords:
Maritime civilization, Pahang River, Malay World, commercial colonialismAbstract
Maritime history of the Malay world has commonly been interpreted through entrepot ports, oceanic trade and sea-borne networks, while territories whose maritime character developed through interactions between inland areas, rivers, estuaries and coasts have received less attention. Pahang represents an important example of this form of maritime development. The Pahang River system, together with the Jelai, Tembeling, Semantan and Bera rivers, connected inland production zones with settlements, centres of authority and the coast. Gold mining before direct British intervention demonstrates that Pahang’s inland areas were already incorporated into exchange networks dependent on riverine mobility, while the Hukum Kanun Pahang (HKP) reveals an established structure of governance, law and commercial regulation. This study employs historical document analysis and thematic content analysis of local sources, Pahang-specific scholarship and comparative works on maritime history, Islamic law and colonialism. The findings show that British intervention after 1888 did not create the economic functions of rivers or resource-based activities, but reorganised authority, revenue administration, relations with capital and the functions of aquatic space. Rivers that had integrated mobility, economy, politics and social life increasingly acquired institutional importance for communication, administration and commodity transport. The phrase from civilisation to infrastructure therefore refers to a transformation in the hierarchy of functions and centres of authority rather than the wholesale replacement of a pre-colonial system. The river–estuary–coast framework adopted in this study situates inland areas within the maritime world and broadens our understanding of the diversity of aquatic civilisations in the Malay world.
References
Abu Talib Ahmad. (2024). State history: A case of Pahang. MINDEN Journal of History and Archaeology, 1(1), 11–29.
Ahmad Farid Abd Jalal, Ibrahim Majdi Mohamad Kamil, Rahimin Affandi Abdul Rahim, & Mohd Yuszaidy Mohd Yusoff. (2026). Hukum Kanun Pahang sebagai arkib peradaban kelautan Alam Melayu. Jurnal Melayu, 25(1), 58–79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17576/jmelayu.2026.2501.04
Ahmad Farid Abd Jalal, Rahimin Affandi Abdul Rahim, & Awang Azman Awang Pawi. (2022). Manuskrip Hukum Kanun Pahang: Antara kepentingan dan kritikan sarjana kolonial. Jurnal Melayu Sedunia, 5(1), 89–99.
Aruna Gopinath. (1991). Pahang, 1880–1933: A political history (Monograph No. 18). Council of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Boomgaard, P. (Ed.). (2007). A world of water: Rain, rivers and seas in Southeast Asian histories. KITLV Press.
Chaudhuri, K. N. (1985). Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge University Press.
Cooper, F. (2005). Colonialism in question: Theory, knowledge, history. University of California Press.
Gullick, J. M. (1988). Rulers and residents: Influence and power in the Malay states, 1870–1920. Oxford University Press.
Headrick, D. R. (1981). The tools of empire: Technology and European imperialism in the nineteenth century. Oxford University Press.
Hooker, M. B. (1972). Readings in Malay adat laws. Oxford University Press.
Jelani Harun. (2003). Pengarang dan penyalin manuskrip Negeri Pahang. Jurnal Filologi Melayu, 11, 75–89.
Jelani Harun. (2008). Undang-undang Kesultanan Melayu dalam perbandingan. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Khalilieh, H. S. (2019). Islamic law of the sea: Freedom of navigation and passage rights in Islamic thought. Cambridge University Press.
Linehan, W. (1936). A history of Pahang. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14(2), 1–257.
Mohd Samsudin. (2010). Pahang sekitar abad ke-19 menurut pandangan pegawai-pegawai British. Jebat: Malaysian Journal of History, Politics & Strategic Studies, 37, 105–121.
Muslim, N., Mohamed, A. F., & Arham, A. F. (2024). From the past to the present: The enduring impact of Hukum Kanun Pahang (Pahang Laws) in Malaysian society. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11, Article 811. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03281-1
Pearson, M. N. (2003). The Indian Ocean. Routledge.
Reid, A. (1993). Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, 1450–1680: Volume 2, Expansion and crisis. Yale University Press.
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja. (2015). The early British administrators in the Malay States, 1874–1909. SEJARAH: Journal of the Department of History, 24(1), 32–41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22452/sejarah.vol24no1.3
Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja. (2018). The economy of colonial Malaya: Administrators versus capitalists. Routledge.
Stoler, A. L. (2009). Along the archival grain: Epistemic anxieties and colonial common sense. Princeton University Press.
Sutherland, H. (2007). Geography as destiny? The role of water in Southeast Asian history. In P. Boomgaard (Ed.), A world of water: Rain, rivers and seas in Southeast Asian histories . 27–70. KITLV Press.
Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). Silencing the past: Power and the production of history. Beacon Press.
Udovitch, A. L. (1970). Partnership and profit in medieval Islam. Princeton University Press.
Wolters, O. W. (1999). History, culture, and region in Southeast Asian perspectives (Rev. ed.). Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University.
Yaakub Isa (Peny.). (2003). Hukum Kanun Pahang: Manuskrip agung negeri Pahang. Muzium Negeri Pahang.
Yusof, A., Abd Jalal, A. F., Alias, A. W., & Abd Rahim, R. A. (2026). Hukum Kanun Pahang sebagai counter-archive: Analisis dekolonial terhadap arkib kolonial British. Jurnal Al-Sirat, 26(1), 153–177. DOI: https://doi.org/10.64398/alsirat.v26i1.526
Zakaria Awang Ali. (1977). Latar belakang sejarah perlombongan emas di Pahang hingga 1914. Jebat: Malaysian Journal of History, Politics & Strategic Studies, 7, 128–144.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Ahmad Farid Abd Jalal, Azman Yusof, Ahnaf Wafi Alias, Rahimin Affandi Abd Rahim
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
