"The main contemporary documents discussing Melaka are the treatises written by Arab navigators Ahmad ibn Majid and Sulayman al-Mahri in the late 15th and early 16th Century."
"...rejection of the Sejarah Melayu as a reliable source of early Melaka history, it is obvious that the year 1262 as the founding date of the Melaka polity that was proposed by some local historians, and still held to be valid by some people in Melaka is an absurdity."
"Placing the Asian sources at the centre of scholarly enquiry would set this international conference apart from the others that had been hosted over the past four to five decades."
"In exploring these connections it will give particular attention to the symbolism of installation through the nobat, the importance of marriage relationships, the rationale for warfare and the ruling style of governance in a polity where vassal rulers could have considerable independence."
