Arabs Flock to Sumatra in Search of This Tree

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — Long before Indonesia was known to the world as it is today, the Sumatra region was already bustling with foreign traders. They arrived with large ships to hunt for a rare commodity of very high value, and not without reason.

This commodity was not gold or ordinary spices, but a natural fragrance mentioned in holy scriptures. High demand from the Arab world made this area an important destination for international trade for centuries.

The plant sought after is known as camphor or kapur barus, called kafur in Arab tradition. This name is also mentioned in the Quran, specifically in Surah Al-Insan verse 5, describing a heavenly drink mixed with kafur water.

Scholars interpret kaafuur as meaning camphor or kapur. This white, fragrant substance is extracted from the wood of trees that commonly grow in the forests of Sumatra island. It is more popularly known as Kapur Barus, as explained in Tafsir Al-Azhar by the renowned scholar Buya Hamka.

The camphor in question differs from the small white round synthetic fragrance made from Naphthalene (C10H8). The camphor or kapur barus mentioned in the Quran is the plant popular in Arab culture named Dryobalanops aromatica in Latin. This plant has a very distinctive fragrance and can even be consumed as it is beneficial for health.

However, Arab society could not easily obtain it since it is not native to their land. As a result, they had to seek the centre of camphor production and, in short, brought traders to the remote eastern parts of the earth. That once-unknown region is now called Indonesia.

Centre of Camphor Production

Archaeologist Edward McKinnon in Ancient Fansur, Aceh’s Atlantis (2013) states that trade connections gradually led Arabs to discover that the centre of camphor production was in Indonesia, specifically on Sumatra island. More precisely, the location is in Fansur, now known as Barus, in the administrative region of North Sumatra.

Arab traders repeatedly mentioned Barus as an important port that shipped commodities, one of which was camphor.

For instance, the Arab trader Ibn al-Faqih in 902 AD already referred to Fansur as a region producing kapur barus, cloves, nutmeg, and sandalwood. Then, the 13th-century geographer Ibn Sa’id al-Maghribi also detailed specifically that Fansur’s camphor came from Sumatra island. Even further back, the Roman scholar Ptolemy had already mentioned the name Barus in the 1st century AD.

Based on this, many Arabs, especially traders, flocked to Sumatra. They were willing to undertake long voyages from Arabia to obtain camphor.

Historian Claude Guillot in Barus A Thousand Years Ago (2008) notes that Arabs arrived in Barus directly from the Persian Gulf, passing through Ceylon (Sri Lanka), then reaching the west coast of Sumatra. They usually brought large ships to transport large quantities of kapur barus to be sold at high prices in international markets.

Gradually, the arrival of Arabs in Sumatra increased after camphor from Barus proved to be of superior quality, surpassing camphor from Malaya and Kalimantan. At this point, Barus was established as a camphor-producing area and had developed into an important port in Sumatra.

Emergence of Islam

The discovery of the kapur barus location in Indonesia led many Arab traders to visit Barus, stopping over or even settling. If they were heading to China, they would certainly stop in Barus first. However, their arrival was not solely motivated by trade but also involved spreading Islam.

As a result, Islamisation occurred among the local population in the places where Arab ships arrived, namely Barus (Fansur), Thobri (Lamri), and Haru. Evidence of the early entry of Islam into Barus is strongly suspected to date back to the 7th century AD.

This is proven by the existence of the ancient Mahligai tomb complex in Barus. There are tombstones dating from the 7th century AD.

From this emerges a theory on the arrival of Islam in Indonesia, which naturally still sparks debate. However, it does not overlook the fact that the process of spreading Islam gradually occurred there.

Regardless of the veracity of that theory, Muslim traders in Barus succeeded in forming a trade network connecting the Arab world with Indonesia, making the homeland famous from ancient times.