Perak chieftain remains going home after 110 years

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Singapore

Grave find a quest fulfilled

New Straits Times

TAIPING: "From the depths of my heart, I thank God for fulfilling my quest; to bring the remains of my great great grandfather Tengku Menteri Ngah Ibrahim back to Matang, the land of his birth." Orang Kaya Menteri Paduka Tuan Datuk Dr Wan Mohd Isa Wan Ahmad, 61, the great great-grandson of Ngah Ibrahim, carries the hereditary title of the "Orang Besar Jajahan" or territorial chief of Larut, Matang and Selama.

Interviewed at his ancestral home in Taiping, Wan Mohd Isa said the attempt to find the grave of Ngah Ibrahim started off with his father, Wan Ahmad Rasdi, who was the territorial chief before him.

"My father made several attempts to locate the grave but was unsuccessful because he did not have the information where Ngah Ibrahim died and whether there was any grave.

"Perhaps God willed that I would be the one to find the grave. A professor of history who learnt about my quest handed me a thesis which contained the information on the location as well as the picture of Ngah Ibrahim’s grave."

With three others, they travelled to Singapore and visited Makam Al-Junid.

They searched the huge graveyard headstone by headstone but failed to locate it on the first day.

The effort continued the next day and the team decided to call it quits when it still could not locate the grave.

"Just when we were ready to leave the area, tired and disappointed, I felt a strange vibration overcoming me and was pulled towards a corner of the graveyard.

"As I neared a raised tomb, I accidentally stepped on a large broken headstone. I picked it up to read the inscription. That was the moment I had waited for. At long last I had found the grave of my ancestor.

"It is said that Ngah Ibrahim was near-blind when he died at the age of 59.

"The blindness was caused by years of solitary crying and grieving for wanting to return and die in his homeland. I feel sorry for him but I pray he will be at peace knowing that he is returning to Matang."

While abundant records are available on the life of Ngah Ibrahim, the man who made his riches from tin mining, the same cannot be said of the life of his father-in-law Laksamana Mohd Amin Alang.

In fact, Amin’s grandson, Orang Kaya-Kaya Laksamana Raja Mahkota Datuk Mohd Amin Shukeri Ali Akbar, had to rely on short notes made by his late father Datuk Ali Akbar Mohd Amin in his faded diary during the interview with the New Straits Times.

"I don’t have any written records or possessions of the Laksamana to show you because everything was confiscated and destroyed by the British after they banished him to Seychelles," said the 70-year-old territorial chief of Hilir Perak.

Amin was a man feared by the British because of his great influence in Lower Perak (Hilir Perak).

"In fact, Datuk Maharajalela and Datuk Sagor, who killed J.W.W. Birch, were under his patronage. However, the British could not link my grandfather to the murder hence the banishment order."

Amin Shukeri said when he came to know about the efforts being made to bring back the remains of Ngah Ibrahim to Perak, he approached Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali who agreed to bear the cost of bringing back the remains of the two men.

"I approached Raja Muda Raja Dr Nazrin Shah to seek his permission to bury Amin in the royal mausoleum in Kuala Kangsar. The Raja Muda informed me that only Sultan Azlan Shah could decide on the matter.

"Raja Nazrin said he would speak to his father on my behalf. Sultan Azlan graciously gave his permission to bury Amin at the mausoleum despite his non-royal status.

Both Wan Mohd Isa and Amin Shukeri will be in Singapore on Wednesday when the graves are exhumed.

Labels: Old News