influences, so potent for good and evil, Mohammedanism made its
appearance first. The struggle for religious supremacy ended in the
complete victory of the Prophet's followers in 1478, when Majapahit
was utterly destroyed, thirty years before the capture of Malacca by
the Portuguese.

How early the Arab doctrines were taught in Bruni is impossible
to state with any precision. Local tradition ascribes their
introduction to the renowned Alak ber Tata, afterwards known as Sultan
Mohammed. Like most of his subjects this warrior was a Bisaya, and in
early life he was not a Mohammedan, not indeed a civilised potentate
at all, to judge by conventional standards; for the chief mark of
his royal dignity was an immense chawat, or loin-cloth, carried as
he walked by eighty men, forty in front and forty behind. He is the
earliest monarch of whom the present Brunis have any knowledge, a fact
to be accounted for partly by the brilliance of his exploits, partly
by the introduction about that time of Arabic writing. After much
fighting he subdued the people of Igan,[16] Kalaka, Seribas, Sadong,
Semarahan, and Sarawak,[17] and compelled them to pay tribute. He
stopped the annual payment to Majapahit of one jar of pinang juice,
a useless commodity though troublesome to collect. During his reign
the Muruts were brought under Bruni rule by peaceful measures,[18]
and the Chinese colony was kept in good humour by the marriage of
the Bruni king's brother and successor to the daughter of one of the
principal Chinamen.

Alak ber Tata is said to have gone to Johore,[19] where he was
converted[20] to Islam, given[21] the daughter of Sultan Bakhei and
the title of Sultan, and was confirmed in his claim to rule over
Sarawak and his other conquests.[22]