Tun Perak

Tun Perak (d. 1498) was the fifth and most famous bendahara, a rank comparable to prime minister, of the Sultanate of Malacca, serving under four sultans — Muzaffar Shah, Mansur Shah, Alauddin Riayat Shah and Mahmud Shah — from 1456 to 1498. ¹ No source consulted gives a birth year: the queue figure of 1410 is attested nowhere, the Malay article's infobox prints an unsourced 1426, and his Wikidata item carries an impossible birth value of 1500, after his own death. ^{2 3} His father's naming varies within the one tradition: the Malay edition makes him the son of Tun Perpatih Sedang, the Bendahara Seri Wak Raja, while the English article calls his father the first bendahara, Sri Wak Raja Tun Perpatih Besar. ^{1 2}

Early in his life Tun Perak was a soldier-statesman for Malacca's rulers. In 1445 he was appointed Malacca's representative, its chieftain, in Klang, and brought the people of Klang — women as well as men, so that the men would fight the harder to protect them — to the capital's defence. ^{1 2} A Siamese invasion began in 1445 and lasted into 1446; when a second Siamese attack came in 1456, Tun Perak was bendahara and led the defence that repelled it — including Malacca's first naval battle, at Batu Pahat, where the fleet he led drove the Siamese back to Singapore. ¹

As bendahara he was instrumental in extending Malacca's power over Pahang, Terengganu, Johor, Riau, Lingga, Bengkalis, Karimon, Rokan, Siak, Kampar, Jambi, Inderagiri and Aru, whose rulers converted to Islam under Malaccan influence. ¹ He succeeded Tun Ali as bendahara in 1456 and held the office through the reigns of Mansur Shah and Alauddin Riayat Shah into that of the young Mahmud Shah, whose regent he effectively was in the new sultan's first years. ^{1 2}

Tun Perak was famous for his loyalty to the sultanate. When his son Tun Besar was killed by Sultan Mahmud Shah's son Raja Muhammad in a misunderstanding, he did not seek revenge against the sultan; instead he asked that Raja Muhammad be crowned elsewhere, and the sultan honoured the request by making the prince sultan in Pahang. ¹ He died in 1498 and was succeeded as bendahara by his younger brother Tun Perpatih Putih. ^{1 3} His death is widely held to mark the beginning of the Malaccan empire's decline; streets, schools and colleges across Malaysia now bear his name, among them Jalan Tun Perak and the Tun Perak Tower in Kuala Lumpur. ¹