Sunan Ampel

Sunan Ampel (also Raden Rakhmat; 1401–1481) was one of Wali Songo, who spread Islam in Java. He can be considered a focal point of the wali songo, because several of them were descended from him and/or studied with him.

Local legend says that he built the great mosque of Demak Masjid Agung Demak in 1479 CE, but other legends attribute that work to Sunan Kalijaga.

The father of Sunan Ampel was Maulana Malik Ibrahim also known as Ibrahim as-Samarkandy ("Ibrahim Asmarakandi" to Javanese ears). His mother was a princess of Champa and Sunan Ampel was born there in 1401 CE. Sunan Ampel came to Java in 1443 CE, possibly to visit his aunt Dwarawati, a princess of Champa who was married to Kertawijaya, the king of Majapahit.

A long lineage indicates that Sunan Ampel was a descendant of Ahmad al-Muhajir, a Hadhramaut saint who migrated from Basra (now in Iraq) to Yemen to avoid strife during the Abbasid Caliphate. However, another theory claims that Sunan Ampel had Chinese ancestry and identifies him as Bong Swi Hoo. The two theories are not mutually exclusive, because Muslims from China interacted extensively with southeast Asia during the time of Zheng He. It was also common for a Muslim man to marry a local woman when settling far from his country of origin.

Sunan Ampel married Nyi Gede Manila, daughter of a Chinese captain at Tuban named Gan Eng Cu. This marriage produced several children: sons Sunan Bonang and Sunan Drajat became wali songo; daughter Syarifah became the wife of Sunan Ngudung and the mother of Sunan Kudus; and another daughter became the first wife of Raden Patah and mother to Trenggana, who succeeded his father as leader of the Sultanate of Demak. Some sources suggest that Raden Patah was the cousin of Sunan Ampel.

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