Sunan Gunungjati

Who was Sunan Gunungjati?

Sunan Gunungjati was one of the Wali Songo, or Nine Apostles of Islam. He founded the Sultanate of Banten, as well as the Sultanate of Cirebon on the north coast of Java. He was born Syarif Hidayatullah Arabic: شريف هداية الله‎ Sharīf Hidāyah Allāh in 1448 CE: the child of a dynastic union between Syarif Abdullah Maulana Huda, an Egyptian of Hashemite descent, and Nyai Rara Santang, daughter of the infamous Prabu Siliwangi, King of Sunda ( Pajajaran ). As such, Syarif Hidayatullah could claim descent, on his paternal side, from the Islamic prophet Muhammad, through his daughter, Fatima; and on his mother's side, a Hindu Devaraja of Sunda.

There is much historical uncertainty as to his early life and later career in the Indonesian Archipelago. Some say that he was born in Pasai, one of the earliest centres of Islam in Southeast Asia; whilst others say that he was born in Pajajaran, capital of his maternal grandfather's Kingdom of Sunda. He is reported to have married a sister of Trenggono, Sultan of Demak, and to have led military expeditions for Demark against Sunda. As Fatahillah - so the story goes - he defeated the Portuguese at their base in Sunda Kelapa, and renamed it Jayakarta in 1527. To this day, his victory over the Portuguese is commemorated as the official anniversary of the founding of Jakarta. The many conflicting stories about Sunan Gunungjati led some scholars to conclude that he might be a conflation of more than one historical figure.