PERAK, TUN

died 1498 bendahara (chief minister) of the port city of Malacca (now Melaka in Malaysia), who was kingmaker and the effective ruler of that important East Indies trade centre from 1456 until his death in 1498. A leader in the Malay defeat of a Siamese invasion in 1445-46, Tun Perak was made bendahara by Sultan Muzaffar Shah in 1456, when he again led Malacca's forces in a decisive defeat of the Siamese. He proceeded with an aggressive foreign policy that resulted in a loose empire embracing the whole southern half of the Malay Peninsula and a portion of the east coast of Sumatra. Muzaffar Shah died about 1459, and the next three sultans, Mansur Shah, Ala'ud'din, and Mahmud Shah, who were all related to Tun Perak, apparently owed their positions to his influence.