Abstract In the fifteenth century, the Malacca Empire emerged as the centre of Islamic civilization in the Malay Archipelago. The history had been recorded in Sulalat Al-Salatin, an important literary source about the genealogy of all Kings in Malacca. The objective of this study was to analyze the understanding of sayings from Prophet Muhammad among Malays in Malacca during the fifteenth century through all of the hadith quoted in Sulalat Al-Salatin. This study used content analysis methodology to validate the sayings where all of them were critically analyzed and compared with the classical hadith sources from prominent Muslim scholars. As a result, only two out of the four quotations were considered as authentic sayings of Prophet Muhammad. This study also showed the importance of the palace as the centre of the Islamic education system and the role played by Muslim preachers from outside of Malacca to propagate Islam in Malacca. Keywords Hadith in Malay Annals, Malay Annals, Sejarah Melayu, Sulalat Al-Salatin. I. INTRODUCTION become one of the most important sources of historical facts about the Malacca Empire as one of the important seaports in the Malay Archipelago during the fifteenth century. The Sulalat Al-Salatin was written using classical Malay language in Jawi script. The original title of this book was in Petuturan Raja-raja Melayu . Among scholars, this manuscript is widely known as the Malay Annals [1][2][3] or Sejarah Melayu [4][5]. Consequently, the main theme of this book relates to the genealogy of the Kings, the history of the Malaccan kingdom that began in early fifteenth century until it was conquered by the Portuguese in 1511, and its relationship with other civilizations namely Java, Arab, China, India and Europe. The issue of who authored this historical manuscript has been discussed and debated in many previous studies. Reference [6] concluded that the author of the manuscript drafted the book in Malacca and died shortly after 1535. The Abdur-Rahman M. A. is with the Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia (phone: 0060-053687774; fax: 0060-053656280; e- mail: abd.ur-rahman@hotmail.com). R. M. Mohd. Ali is with the Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia (e-mail: razolmahari_ali@petronas.com.my). R. A. I. R. Yaacob is with the Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia (e-mail: iskandar_yaacob@petronas.com.my). true identity of the author who first drafted the manuscript remains, until today, unknown [7]. Raja Bongsu, who was then the King of Johor, gave the order to Tun Bambang in 1612 to start editing the Sulalat Al-Salatin and he probably completed his work while in captivity in Acheh [8]. However, [9] strongly disagrees with [8] and stressed that this book was in fact written by Tun Seri Lanang, who had been the Bendahara (Chief Minister) of Johor since the 1580s. Another study even suggested that the editor may have come from Perak or from the northern regions of Peninsula Malaysia [1]. With these disagreements among scholars [1][6]-[9], the true author of this book remains anonymous. Nevertheless, it was believed that both Tun Seri Lanang and Tun Bambang were involved in the process of copying and editing the manuscript. Moreover, the contribution of Tun Seri Lanang to this manuscript cannot be denied as his name appears in many variant versions of this manuscript [10]. Among the main reasons why different historical figures have been associated with the author or editor is the existence of variant copies of Sulalat Al-Salatin which have been preserved in many libraries throughout the world including in Malaysia, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Indonesia and Russia. A study by Roolvink [11], in which all 28 copies of the manuscripts, excluding the manuscripts from Malaysia and Russia were examined, concluded that all of the manuscripts are late copies and the earliest copy was only dated as early as the nineteenth century. A more recent finding revealed that the manuscript in Russia is dated back to 1798, which can be considered as the earliest copy compared to the other manuscripts [12]. The Sulalat Al-Salatin has been transcribed into Roman alphabets and translated into many languages including English, Dutch, French, Russian, Chinese and Japanese starting as early as the nineteenth century. In the past, many scholars focused their studies about Sulalat Al-Salatin only from the literature and linguistics point of views. In addition, it has been considered as the best of all Malay literary works [7]. This literature marked the beginning of Malay Muslim literature when Quranic verses and Islamic terminologies started to appear in and provide substance to the story, although the elements of Hinduism and Buddhism can still be found especially at the beginning of the book [13]. This was the result of the transition period from old Malay literature which was influenced mostly by Hindu-Buddhist elements to a new Malay Muslim literature system when the King of Malacca embraced Islam. The analysis of the sentence structure and words has been done by many scholars including [14][15][16][17]. Moreover, The Malacca Empire: Sayings of Prophet Muhammad in Sulalat Al-Salatin Abdur-Rahman M. A., R. M. Mohd. Ali, and R. A. I. R. Yaacob. T Sulalat Al-Salatin or also known as Sejarah Melayu has World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 64 2012 553