LAST weekend an organisation called Muhammad Aishah Mandak (MAM) held a reunion in Istana Besar Seri Menanti, the first such event held at the palace. MAM is a family association that represents the descendants of Tengku Muhammad ibni Sultan Ahmad al-Muadzam Shah of Pahang (b.1901, d.1957), who served as Tengku Panglima Perang, and Tengku Aishah Mandak binti Tengku Mustafa (b.1902, d.1988), who held the title of Tengku Seri Kemala.
Tengku Muhammad was a classic civil service aristocrat with an education at the Malay College Kuala Kangsar and a career in the Federated Malay States police force, eventually becoming Menteri Besar of Terengganu as well as Pahang. He was friendly with Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, who appointed him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (or CBE, one step senior to Dato’ Jimmy Choo’s present OBE). His marriage to Tengku Aishah Mandak, previously married to the Sultan of Terengganu, is one of the reasons why links between the two royal houses today are very close.
Thus to be more accurate, MAM brings together the descendants of Tengku Muhammad or Tengku Aishah Mandak, because the former already had a previous wife whom he had divorced, while the latter already had two previous husbands, both of whom had passed away. Each of these four marriages produced children, and so the number of collective descendants surpasses a thousand today.
In my case, I am descended from Tengku Aishah Mandak by her marriage, as his ninth wife, to Sultan Zainal Abidin III of Terengganu (b. 1866, r. 1881, d. 1918). This marriage produced only one son, my maternal grandfather Tengku Besar Mahmud (b.1918, d.1989), who held the title of Tengku Seri Utama Raja. He was six months old when his father died, but as a full royal son he was also expected to lead the happy life of an Anglophile aristocrat, which he did with great gusto. He went to St Edward’s School Oxford at the age of nine and later became the first Malay to join the British Royal Air Force, serving in World War II, already having caused considerable controversy and miles of newsprint by having an English wife (this marriage bore children but ended in divorce; my grandfather subsequently married my grandmother, who also had a previous husband). Through this connection, MAM today includes members who are three-quarters English.
I could go on with these factoids but I am afraid I will get a headache because the family tree (which apart from the Tunku Ampuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan also includes the Tengku Mahkota of Pahang) is so gigantic and convoluted. But I say all this because although I have long held that the family is clearly the best way to learn history, it is also a fine way to learn the present too. As the afternoon activities progressed – a lecture by the always entertaining Sheikh Fuad Kamaluddin, a clown performance for the kids and enforced performances of fashion shows, dancing and karaoke (I avoided this humiliation by instead judging the competition) – it was clear that a newly developing country like Malaysia with massive rural-urban shift in three generations has resulted in families containing different worldviews, political affiliations, levels of religious observance, material wealth, professions and physical features as foreign blood is infused into the family: there are marriages to Italians and if you have read (second cousin) Dina Zaman’s book I am Muslim you will also recall the Germans who are also members of the clan.
Contact with such a wide array of individuals is not only enlightening but in conjunction with the adage ‘blood is thicker than water’, a fantastic way to make people realise that despite all the differences that exist between them, there is an overarching bond that can never be erased. Some people might ask, “What is the point? You can’t choose your family but you can choose your friends”, and say that there is no point in cherishing relationships you do not choose. But that would be wasting a great opportunity.
I have previously pointed out the naïveté of politicians who imagine a time when there was such a thing as political unity amongst Malays. That is sheer fantasy: there have always been differences of opinion amongst Malays and amongst families. Indeed perhaps the only real tangible and irreversible unity is that of blood and genetics. Political loyalties and lifestyles can change, but for the hundreds of us who are descended from these two remarkable individuals in the early 20th century, our heredity will always be a source of a shared history and a platform to share new stories.