Sabda Palon Book: History Written with Novel Style

Surprisingly, the book's narrative style is far from the boring history content I usually find in school lessons. The author formulated the essential historical content into an easy-to-read story, so it feels like reading a novel. The book does not contain a provocation on one Religion, tribe, or race, even though it tells us about the fallen era of the Majapahit, which is dominated by political conflict due to the Religion's transformation from Siwa Budha into Islam.

Book 1 & 2 | © Author

I have read books 1 and 2 and will tell you a glimpse of them (SPOILER ALERT). As you can guess, book 1 is the preliminary part of the tale. It focuses on describing Majapahit's greatness among neighboring kingdoms in ASEAN, which is often considered equal to the Ming Dynasty in China. The story begins with an explanation of the landscape of the Majapahit kingdom from its buildings, architecture, society, and political structure. Exploring all those things by creating a theater of the mind with the author's narration satisfies me. The only thing disturbing is how the author mentions a person's name. It's hard to memorize because the name is not elaborate enough and is mentioned directly with another name.

Illustration | Created with AI

Majapahit, which is told in book 1, is at the stage when the kingdom is already at its peak, with a vast territory like a big country. The main problem described in that time frame is international (across the empire) economic and political issues. Global trade in that era significantly developed between locals and various nations, especially the Chinese nation from the Ming Dynasty and the Champa or Khmer Kingdom. The development has already reached the stage where local and Chinese ethnic blend through marriage, and there's a government agreement to protect Chinese traders who live in Majaphit.

Besides the busy trading and economic activities, there's an emerging new Religion brought by visitors and traders who settle on Java island. Bhre Kêrtabumi, the crown prince of Majaphit, recognized the emerging Religion and thought it needed guidance from the religious leader. Then he asked his wife's uncle, Syekh Ibrahim Al-Akbar, to come from Champa.

The Syekh's journey to Java is not straightforward due to many obstacles and disasters his group faces when sailing. But as the famous Sabda Palon-Naya Genggong said, "The Majapahit era will reach its end, and then Nusantara will be transformed into the new face that brings a new era and Religion. No one could ever prevent that. Instead, anyone should do their best to pass safely through this revolution". Long story short, after the group landed safely, Syekh Ibrahim Al-Akbar passed away and the task to fulfill the Bhre Kêrtabumi quest was passed down to his son Sayyid Ali Murtadlo.

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Then, in book 2, the previous problem is elaborated. The book mainly tells us about Sayyid Ali Murtadlo's journey to embrace a new Religion on Java island. The book also describes how some government members thought Bhre Kêrtabumi was too weak and too soft with the new Religion without seriously considering the threat behind that. So, some rebellions were planned to do an underground movement in contrast with the central government command of Majapahit.

In this second book, there are scattered conflicts among some characters, so I can't remember them in detail. But as far as I understand, the fall of Majapahit has already started here. As a wise man said, "The destruction of a great nation is not because of direct attack from outside, but from small scattered insider riot that's not recognized until it becomes too destructive and complex."

Another fact that amazes me is that Syekh, who introduces a new religion, is not from the Middle East but is still a Champa (Indo-Chinese) or one of the Southeast ethnicities. Also, instead of radically transforming the culture, they blended the local culture and its values with the new Religion. They also tolerate many religions and don't want to create conflict in society. In simple terms, they bring a smooth transition without a war.

Illustration | Created with AI

So that's all. Reading only two books was not enough to satisfy my curiosity, so I searched for more history and found other blogs by Sabda Palon authors. Of course, those books greatly affected my first impression of history books. They gave me a new perspective and facts about "hidden history" because the book's content is compiled from various historical media and notes. I hope my next history book has a narrative style like the book written by Dhamar Shasangka.