The ‘discovery’ of Penang Island at Tanjong Tokong before 1785: Bapu Alaidin Meera Hussein Lebai and Captain Francis Light
Wazir Jahan Karim’s 2013 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society reconstructs the pre-1786 history of Tanjong Tokong on Penang Island, arguing that Captain Francis Light’s “discovery” of the island was facilitated by Bapu Alaidin Meera Hussein Lebai, a Malabar Muslim trader who led British scouts to the strategic peak of Bukit Meriam where a Malay-Jawi Peranakan village already existed. Drawing on oral histories, family genealogies, and physical evidence including a cannon dated 1785, Karim demonstrates that the official narrative of Penang’s founding in 1786 obscures the prior occupation and subsequent displacement of Malay coastal communities.
Summary
Karim’s central argument is that the Malay and Jawi Peranakan communities of Tanjong Tokong were established well before 1786 and were systematically dispossessed following British occupation. The village on the peak of Bukit Meriam (Cannon Hill) included a Malay fort (kubu), a cemetery, and a trading community of Kedah Malays and Jawi Peranakan who fished, traded in mangrove products, and maintained symbiotic relationships with pirates. When Bapu Alaidin led Captain Francis Light to this vantage point in 1785 or early 1786, Light recognized its military value for monitoring ships approaching Tanjong Penaga and placed a cannon there—a year before the formal “founding” of Penang on 11 August 1786 (pp. 1, 10, 16).
The displacement of Malay villagers from the hilltop followed quickly. Karim argues that the French Catholic mission, Missions Etrangeres de Paris, under Bishop Garnault, was granted parcels of land on the hill in the years immediately after 1786, and by 1804 the retreat house Mariophile was built on the peak, with the cannon relocated to its site (pp. 9, 14). The Malay villagers were “chased downhill” (hambat turun) to merge with a fishing village at the water’s edge (kampung gigi air), losing their fort and their elevated position (p. 13). Because they had assumed customary rights over the land they occupied and did not register titles under the British system, they were progressively marginalized. The introduction of the Torrens title system in 1889 rendered Malay landownership on the island “almost negligible” (p. 14).
Karim also traces the genealogy of Bapu Alaidin’s descendants, who unlike the local Malays did secure land titles and accumulated considerable wealth. His grandson Haji Mohamad Ariff owned 72 lots auctioned in 1917, and his great-grandson Wan Chik Ariffin endowed a mosque, a road, and a football cup (pp. 17–18). The family retained the surname “Ariffin” across eight or more generations in Tanjong Tokong, and their connection to the founding of the Penang Malay Association in 1927 underscores their continued social prominence (pp. 4–5).
Key Findings
- A cannon engraved with the date 1785, now located at the Mt Miriam Cancer Hospital site, predates the official “founding” of Penang by a full year and confirms British military occupation of Bukit Meriam before 11 August 1786 (pp. 1, 16–17).
- Bapu Alaidin Meera Hussein Lebai, a Malabar Muslim trader in cattle, betel-nut, fish, and mangrove wood, is identified by multiple descendant accounts and local elders as the person who led Francis Light to the peak of Cannon Hill and showed him the strategic view of Tanjong Penaga (pp. 10, 16).
- Tombstones in the Tanjong Tokong cemetery on the hill peak bear inscriptions dated 1231 AH (1816 CE) for a Haji and Hajah of Kedah Malay-Acehnese descent; given an estimated age at death of 60–70, they were almost certainly inhabitants before 1786 (pp. 22–23).
- The French Catholic mission (Missions Etrangeres de Paris) secured land titles on the hill by approximately 1804, when the retreat house Mariophile was built and the cannon was relocated to its site, effectively converting the Malay village peak into a Christian mission property (pp. 9, 14).
- The Torrens title system introduced in 1889 required registered title deeds and did not recognize customary or native land law, reducing Malay landownership on Penang to near zero by that date (p. 14).
- Bapu Alaidin’s descendants were the only local families to secure formal land titles in the Tanjong Tokong area; the cemetery he opened on the hill peak remains the only parcel of Malay waqf (endowed) land on Mount Meriam (pp. 16–17).
Conclusion
Karim’s definitive takeaway is that the “discovery” of Penang was neither a neutral act of exploration nor a legitimate cession but a strategic military seizure facilitated by a local intermediary whose cooperation enabled the British to identify and occupy a position already inhabited by Malay communities. The displacement of Tanjong Tokong’s villagers from the hilltop to the shoreline, combined with the transfer of land to the Catholic mission and the failure of Malays to register titles under the British system, produced a pattern of dispossession that persisted through the Torrens system and into the twentieth century, leaving the original settlers without legal claim to the land they had occupied for generations.
Context
- The article was commissioned in part by the Tanjong Tokong Residents’ Association and the Penang Heritage Trust in their efforts to designate Tanjong Tokong as a National Heritage Zone and to resolve ongoing land ownership disputes with UDA Holdings (n. 1).
- Karim’s research draws on a 1785 map of Telok Ticoose (Tanjong Tokong) showing the Jawi-Peranakan settlement on the hill, family genealogies compiled by Hassan Hj. Ariffin, and oral testimonies from descendants of pioneer families, positioning the work at the intersection of archival research and community history (pp. 15, 12).