Background In the 7th century, there was an early reference to a Malay Kingdom based in
Jambi, which was eventually absorbed into the
Srivijaya empire as an independent trading community or a subject-region. An account associated the early history of the sultanate with the Islamization of Sumatra, citing that these two events roughly coincided in the fifteenth century. While
Song and
Yuan dynasty Chinese porcelain were found in Muara Jambi, near
Jambi city (Chan-pei or Zhanbei). In 1095, 1094, 1090, 1088, and 1084 China received diplomatic delegations from Jambi, and the Jambi (Zhanbei) ruler and his daughter sent cloth, camphor and two
Chinese language letters to
Guangzhou in 1082. Local Muslim women who dealt in the cloth trade willingly married Han Chinese men in Palembang and Jambi and also local Muslim women in
Banten married Han Chinese men. The Han Chinese men converted to Islam to please their Muslim wives. The same Muslim women refused to deal or even meet with Dutch men especially in
Palembang since the Dutch were infamous for
sexually abusing indigenous Muslim women. Han Chinese merchants were a major rival of the Dutch in colonial Indonesia. Han Chinese interpreters advised the local Muslim king of Jambi to go to war against the Dutch, while the Dutch attacked Chinese ships and Thai ships to stop them from trading with the Muslims in Jambi and make them trade with the Dutch in Batavia. The Chinese continued to violate the Dutch ban on trade with Jambi. The Dutch East India Company was also angered by Thailand trading with the Jambi Sultanate and the Jambi Sultanate sending pepper and flowers as tribute to Thailand. leading to tensions between Thailand the Dutch in 1663–1664 and 1680–1685. The Dutch wanted Chinese banned from Thai junks and were angry when a Thai ambassador in Iran took out a loan from the Dutch in
Surat but didn't pay it back after his ship got repaired. The 1682 Dutch invasion of
Banten (Bantam) in Indonesia also raised alarms in Thailand, so the Thai King Narai courted the French to counter the Dutch. Dutch East India Company attacked
Zheng Zhilong's junks which were trading pepper with Jambi, but while the Dutch transferred 32 Chinese prisoners into the Dutch ship, the remaining Chinese managed to slaughter the 13 Dutch sailors on board the Chinese junk and retake the vessel. Zheng Zhilong demanded the Dutch then release the 32 Chinese in 1636. Dutch East India Company blockaded Thai trade in 1664 and in 1661–1662 seized a Thai junk owned by a Persian official in Thailand. The Dutch tried to impede Thai and Chinese competition with the Dutch in the pepper trade at Jambi. The Jambi Sultan temporarily jailed English merchants during violence between the Dutch and English. The Thai and Jambi Sultanate angrily complained against the Dutch over Dutch attacks and attempts to impede Jambi's trade with Chinese and Thai. Chinese junks regularly traded with Jambi, Patani, Siam and Cambodia. The title of Shahbandar was held by Han Chinese in Jambi and Japara as Chinese came to those cities and Bantam to trade in pepper. If the 15th century there were Chinese in
Surabaya and in the late half of the 14th century there were Chinese in Grise and in the 14th century there were Chinese in Tumasik. Jambi was visited every year by Chinese for pepper that came from the Sumatra Minangkabau highlands. Palembang also exported pepper. Commerce in Jambi was dominated by Chinese merchants and local Jambi people also benefited from renting out to rubber
plantations.
Era of prosperity Jambi was part of
Majapahit from the mid-14th century until it broke away in the early 16th century. Aside from pepper, Jambi also exported gold and forest products such as
beeswax,
resin, and
timber. At around 1615, Jambi became a sultanate. The Jambi Sultanate was involved in the
Brunei Civil War by selling
gunpowder to
Muhyiddin (the future sultan of Brunei), who would later defeat
Abdul Hakkul Mubin in
Pulau Cermin. In the aftermath of the conflict, Jambi would become a destination for Bruneian troops.
Jambi-Johor War Jambi took advantage of the
Acehnese invasion of Johor to seize
Tungkal, a disputed district on the border with Johor. Despite a 1629
Johorese attempt to seek its return, Tungkal remained under Jambian sovereignty until a pro-Johorese rebellion forced them out in 1655. His mother was also from
Makassar. Sultan Ingalaga honored the Makassarese and gave their leader, a sister of Karaeng Fatimah, Daeng Mangika, the title of Pangeran Sutadilaga. He was a young and energetic sultan. However, by this time the Dutch had become more and more demanding. In 1858, an expedition was launched that deposed Sultan Taha within a day. He fled upstream into the region of Upper Jambi, while his uncle,
Ahmad Nazaruddin, became the new ruler of Jambi. This divided Jambi into two competing areas: Upper and Lower, restoring a divide that had not existed since the early 18th century. Sultan Taha attempted, on multiple occasions, to seek the assistance of the
Ottoman Empire (in 1857, 1902, and 1903), all of which became futile. Lower Jambi would be governed by a succession of Dutch-controlled shadow rulers (
Jawi: ,
sultan bayang). Some of these rulers were: Ahmad Nazaruddin from 1858 to 1881, Mohildin from 1882 to 1885, and Zainuddin from 1886 to 1899. In 1899, Sultan Zainuddin was forced to abdicate, but the Jambian nobility refused to elect a new sultan. The resident of Palembang, as a result, took on the position of "Sultan" until 1903, when the sultanate was annexed into the Palembang Residency. The killing of Sultan Taha in 1904 marked the end of the Jambi Sultanate. == Society and population ==