The Terengganu Stone has generally been accepted as one of the oldest archaeological artifacts for evidence of the arrival of Islam to Malaysia, and Southeast Asia more generally.
Since its discovery in 1887 the Terengganu inscription has drawn much interest from scholars of various disciplines. Yet in this volume Emeritus Professor Dr. Ahmat Adam argues that scholarship on the inscription has consistently misdated the stone and misrepresented its true content.
Through philological and historical analysis he argues that the correct date of the inscription is not 702 H. or 1303 A.D but 708 H. or 1308 A.D and that the inscription also reveals the usage of a unique calendrical system in the early 14th century, alongside other clues to the nature of historical Malay society.
Ahmat Adam is Professor Emeritus of History and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies. He is the author of The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness 1855-1913 (Cornell University Press, 1995), Antara Sejarah dan Mitos: Sejarah Melayu & Hang Tuah dalam Historiografi Malaysia (SIRD, 2016) and of the latest recension (2016) of the Sulalat u’s-Salatin (The Malay Annals) based on the Krusenstern’s Manuscript now kept at the Archival Library of Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg, Russia.
