For a long time, researchers believed that the Chams had arrived by sea in the first millennium BC from
Sumatra,
Borneo and the
Malay Peninsula, eventually settling in central modern
Vietnam. The original Chams are therefore the likely heirs of
Austronesian navigators from
Taiwan and Borneo, whose main activities are commerce, transport and perhaps also piracy. Austronesian
Chamic peoples might have migrated into present-day Central Vietnam around 3 kya to 2.5 kya (1,000 to 500 BC). With having formed a
thalassocracy leaving traces in written sources, they invested the ports at the start of important trade routes linking
India,
China and
Indonesian islands. Historians are now no longer disputing in associating the
Sa Huynh culture (1000 BC–200 AD) with the ancestors of the Cham people and other Chamic-speaking groups. Patterns and chronology of migration remain debated and it is assumed that the Cham people, the only Austronesian ethnic group originated from South Asia, arrived later in
peninsular Southeast Asia via Borneo. Mainland Southeast Asia had been populated on land routes by members of the
Austroasiatic language family, such as the
Mon people and the
Khmer people around 5,000 years ago. The Chams were accomplished Austronesian seafarers that from centuries populated and soon dominated
maritime Southeast Asia. Earliest known records of Cham presence in Indochina date back to the second century CE. Population centers were located on the river outlets along the coast. As they controlled the import/export trade of continental Southeast Asia, they enjoyed a prosperous maritime economy. Cham folklore includes a
creation myth in which the founder of the Cham people was a certain
Lady Po Nagar. According to Cham mythology, Lady Po Nagar was born out of sea foam and clouds in the sky. However, in Vietnamese mythology, which adopted the goddess after taking over the Champa kingdom, her name is
Thiên Y A Na and she instead came from a humble peasant home somewhere in the Dai An Mountains,
Khánh Hòa Province, spirits assisted her as she travelled to China on a floating log of sandalwood where she married a man of royalty and had two children. She eventually returned to Champa "did many good deeds in helping the sick and the poor" and "a temple was erected in her honor".
Early history fighting the
nāga (12th-13th century CE) Like countless other political entities of Southeast Asia, the Champa principalities underwent the process of
Indianization since the early common era as a result of centuries of socio-economic interaction adopted and introduced cultural and institutional elements of India. From the 8th century onward, Muslims from such regions as
Gujarat began to increasingly appear in trade and shipping of India. Islamic ideas became a part of the vast tide of exchange, treading the same path as Hinduism and Buddhism centuries before. Cham people picked up these ideas by the 11th century. This can be seen in the architecture of Cham temples, which shares similarities with one of the
Angkor temples.
Ad-Dimashqi writes in 1325, "the country of Champa... is inhabited by
Muslims and idolaters. The Muslim religion came there during the time of Caliph
Uthman... and
Ali, many Muslims who were expelled by the
Umayyads and by
Hajjaj, fled there". The
Daoyi Zhilüe records that at Cham ports, Cham women were often married to Chinese merchants, who frequently came back to them after trading voyages. A Chinese merchant from
Quanzhou, Wang Yuanmao, traded extensively with Champa and married a Cham princess. In the 12th century, the Chams fought a series of wars with the
Khmer Empire to the west. In 1177, the Chams and their allies launched an attack from the lake
Tonlé Sap and managed to sack the Khmer capital of
Angkor. In 1181, however, they were defeated by the Khmer King
Jayavarman VII.
Encounter with Islam from 1590 Islam first arrived in Champa around the ninth century; however, it did not become significant among the Cham people until after the eleventh century. The Buranun were then subjected to retaliatory slaughter by the Orang Dampuan. Harmonious commerce between Sulu and the Orang Dampuan was later restored. The Yakans were descendants of the Taguima-based Orang Dampuan who came to Sulu from Champa. Sulu received civilisation in its Indic form from the Orang Dampuan. A number of Chams also fled across the sea to the
Malay Peninsula and as early as the 15th century, a Cham colony was established in
Malacca. The Chams encountered
Sunni Islam there as the
Malacca Sultanate was officially Muslim since 1414. The King of Champa then became an ally of the
Johor Sultanate; in 1594, Champa sent its military forces to fight alongside Johor against the
Portuguese occupation of Malacca. Between 1607 and 1676, one of the Champa kings converted to Islam and it became a dominant feature of Cham society. The Chams also adopted the
Jawi alphabet. , Vietnam Historical records in
Indonesia showed the influence of Queen Dwarawati, a Muslim princess from the kingdom of Champa, toward her husband, Kertawijaya, the Seventh King of
Majapahit Empire, so that the royal family of the Majapahit Empire eventually converted to Islam, which finally led to the conversion to Islam of the entire region. Chams Princess tomb can be found in
Trowulan, the site of the capital of the Majapahit Empire. In
Babad Tanah Jawi, it is said that the king of
Brawijaya V has a wife named Dewi Anarawati (or Dewi Dwarawati), a Muslim daughter of the King of Champa (Chams). Recent scholarship, however, has shown that widespread conversion to Islam came much later. Poorly studied artefacts such as Islamic graves (which simply could have been ships' ballast) have been reexamined to show that they were, in fact, Tunisian and not Cham. Poorly conducted linguistic research attempting to link vocabulary to Arabic has been debunked as well. Rather, there is no sound evidence for widespread conversion to Islam until the 16th century.
Wars with the Vietnamese Between the rise of the Khmer Empire around 800 and the
Vietnamese's
territorial expansion southwards from
Jiaozhi and, later,
Đại Việt, Champa began to shrink. At a disadvantage against Dai Viet's army of 300,000 troops, the Cham army of 100,000 were overwhelmed. In the
Cham–Vietnamese War (1471), Champa suffered serious defeats at the hands of the Vietnamese, in which 120,000 people were either captured or killed, and the kingdom was reduced to a small enclave near
Nha Trang with many Chams fleeing to
Cambodia. Champa was no longer a threat to Vietnam, and some were even enslaved by their victors. The Chams were
matrilineal and inheritance passed through the mother. Because of this, in 1499 the Vietnamese enacted a law banning marriage between Cham women and Vietnamese men, regardless of class. The Vietnamese also issued instructions in the capital to kill all Chams within the vicinity. More attacks by the Vietnamese continued and in 1693 the Champa Kingdom's territory was integrated as part of Vietnamese territory. The trade in
Vietnamese ceramics was damaged due to the plummet in trade by Cham merchants after the Vietnamese invasion. Vietnam's export of ceramics was also damaged by its internal civil war, the Portuguese and Spanish entry into the region and the Portuguese conquest of Malacca which caused an upset in the trading system, while the carracks ships in the Malacca to Macao trade run by the Portuguese docked at Brunei due to good relations between the Portuguese and Brunei after the Chinese permitted Macao to be leased to the Portuguese. When the
Ming dynasty in China fell, several thousand Chinese refugees fled south and extensively settled on Cham lands and in Cambodia. Most of these Chinese were young males, and they took Cham women as wives. Their children identified more with Chinese culture. This migration occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. Chams participated in
defeating the Spanish invasion of Cambodia. Cambodian king
Cau Bana Cand Ramadhipati, also known as 'Sultan Ibrahim', launched the
Cambodian–Dutch War to expel the Dutch. The Vietnamese
Nguyen Lords toppled Ibrahim from power to restore Buddhist rule. In the 18th century and the 19th century, Cambodian-based
Chams settled in Bangkok.
Fall of the Champa kingdom Further expansion by the Vietnamese in 1692 resulted in the total annexation of the Champa kingdom
Panduranga and dissolution by the 19th century Vietnamese Emperor,
Minh Mạng. In response, the last Cham Muslim king, Pô Chien, gathered his people in the hinterland and fled south to
Cambodia, while those along the coast migrated to
Trengganu (
Malaysia). A small group fled northward to the Chinese island of
Hainan where they are known today as the
Utsuls. The king and his people who took refuge in Cambodia were scattered in communities across the
Mekong Basin. Those who remained in the Nha Trang, Phan Rang, Phan Rí, and
Phan Thiết provinces of central Vietnam were absorbed into the Vietnamese polity. Cham provinces were seized by the Nguyen Lords. After Vietnam invaded and
conquered Champa, Cambodia granted refuge to Cham Muslims escaping from Vietnamese conquest. In 1832, the Vietnamese Emperor Minh Mang annexed the last Champa Kingdom. This resulted in the Cham Muslim leader
Katip Sumat, who was educated in
Kelantan, declaring a
Jihad against the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese coercively fed lizard and pig meat to Cham Muslims and cow meat to Cham Hindus against their will to punish them and assimilate them to Vietnamese culture. The second revolt led by
Ja Thak Wa, a Bani cleric, resulting in the establishment of a
Cham resistance which lasted from 1834 to 1835 until it was bloody crushed by Minh Mang's forces in July 1835. Only 40,000 Chams remained in the old Panduranga territory in 1885.
20th century At the division of Vietnam in 1954, the majority of Chams remained in South Vietnam. A handful of Chams who were members of the
Viet Minh went North during the population exchange between North and South known as
Operation Passage to Freedom – along with around ten thousand indigenous highland peoples – mainly Chamic and Bahnaric – from South Vietnam. The
Democratic Republic of Vietnam during its early years (1954–1960) were actually more favourable toward ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples, compared to
Republic of Vietnam, attacking
Ngo Dinh Diem's Kinh chauvinist attitudes. Leaders of
Communist Party of Vietnam at the time promised equal rights and autonomy, and by 1955 the North's national broadcast station
Voice of Việt Nam began broadcasting propaganda radio in
Rhadé,
Bahnar, and
Jarai, to recruit support from the South's indigenous groups. These cultivation efforts later contributed to the foundation of the
FULRO in 1964, although FULRO's objective was to fight against both North and South Vietnam. In Cambodia, due to discriminatory treatments of the colonial and following Sihanouk governments, the Cham communities here sought communism. The Chams began to rise in prominence in Cambodian politics when they joined the communists as early as the 1950s, with a Cham elder, Sos Man joining the
Indochina Communist Party and rising through the ranks to become a major in the Party's forces. He then returned home to the Eastern Zone in 1970 and joined the
Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and he co-established the Eastern Zone Islamic Movement with his son, Mat Ly. Together, they became the mouthpiece of the Khmer Rouge and they encouraged the Cham people to participate in the revolution. Sos Man's Islamic Movement was also tolerated by the Khmer Rouge's leadership between 1970 and 1975. The Chams were gradually forced to abandon their faith and their distinct practices, a campaign which was launched in the Southwest as early as 1972. In the 1960s various movements emerged calling for the creation of a separate Cham state in Vietnam. The
Front for the Liberation of Champa (FLC) and the dominated. The latter group sought greater alliance with other hill tribe minorities. Initially known as "" from 1946 to 1960, the group later took the designation "" and joined, with the FLC, the "" (
FULRO) at some point in the 1960s. Since the late 1970s, there has been no serious Cham secessionist movement or political activity in Vietnam or Cambodia. During the
Vietnam War, a sizeable number of Chams migrated to
Peninsular Malaysia, where they were granted sanctuary by the
Malaysian government out of sympathy for fellow Muslims; most of them have now assimilated with
Malay cultures. The Cham community suffered a major blow during the
Cambodian genocide in
Democratic Kampuchea. The
Khmer Rouge targeted ethnic minorities like
Chinese, Thai, Lao,
Vietnamese and the Cham people, though the Chams suffered the largest death toll in proportion to their population. Around 80,000 to 100,000 Chams out of a total Cham population of 250,000 people in 1975, died in the genocide. == 21st century ==