Synopsis "Over the centuries, merchants from Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, ports and mystics and literary figures propagated the Islamic faith. because commerce was more prevalent along the coasts of Sumatra, Java and the eastern archipelago than in Inland areas of Java, it is not surprising that Islamisation proceeded more rapidly in the former than the latter.

An inscription from a tombstone dated 1297, reveals that the first ruler of Samudra, another Sumatran State was a Muslim. Ibn-Battuta visited the same town in 1345-46 and wrote that its monarch was a Sunni rather than a Shia Muslim."