Tawalisi (ca. 1350 C.E–1400 C.E.) is a Southeast Asian kingdom described in the journals of Ibn Battuta. Guesses to the location of Tawalisi have included

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

, Pangasinan,

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

, Sulu, Celebes ( Sulawesi),

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

Cochin-China Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical exony ...

, the mainland Chinese province of

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, and practically every island in South Asia beginning with ''ta''. In the Philippines, Pangasinan was considered to be the most-likely location of Tawalisi, but this has since been disputed.

Ibn Battuta's description

Thereafter, we reached the land of Tawalisi, it being their king who is called by that name. It is a vast country and its king is a rival of the king of China. He possesses many junks, with which he makes war on the Chinese until they come to terms with him on certain conditions. The inhabitants of this land are idolaters; they are handsome men and closely resemble the Turks in figure. Their skin is commonly of a reddish hue, and they are brave and warlike. Their women ride on horseback and are skillful archers, and fight exactly like men.
—Ibn Battuta

Theories on location

Java theory

Java had been attacked by

Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...

s they called Tatars in 1293. According to friar

Odoric of Pordenone Odoric of Pordenone, OFM (1286–1331), also known as Odorico Mattiussi/Mattiuzzi, Odoricus of Friuli or Orderic of Pordenone, was an Italian late-medieval Franciscan friar and missionary explorer. He traveled through India, the Greater Sunda Is ...

, the great khan of Cathay (Yuan dynasty) attacked Java ( Majapahit) many times but was always defeated. Hence, it is probable that Java at that time especially the royal court had also been linguistically influenced by the Turkic speaking Tatars. So it is possible that the ''Bhre Daha'' (the ruler of

Daha Daha or DAHA may refer to: Places India * Daha, Karnal, a village in Karnal district of Haryana state of India * Daha, Bagpat, India Nepal * Daha, Bheri, Nepal * Daha, Karnali, Nepal Other places * Daha (modern Kediri, East Java), the ...

) could talk in Turkic as was observed by Ibn Battuta during his visit to her court. Majapahit also possessed a powerful navy of Javanese junks (''jong'') during its era. Each junk is able to carry 600–1000 men, was more than long, and could carry several hundred horses. The number of junks possessed by Majapahit is unknown, but the largest expedition mobilized 400 large junks. This matches the account of Odoric about the junk he boarded while traveling in Southeast Asia—which carried 700 men, and Ibn Battuta's description about Tawalisi having numerous junks that were used to fight the king of China.

Philippine theory

The location of Tawalisi, as well as the identity of its described warrior-princess

Urduja Urduja was a legendary warrior princess recorded in the travel accounts of Ibn Battuta (1304 – possibly 1368 or 1377 AD). She was described to be a princess of ''Kaylukari'' in the land of ''Tawalisi''. Though the locations of ''Kaylukari'' and ...

, remains a part of Philippine folklore and history, in spite of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines finding the related

Kalantiaw Datu Kalantiaw (Rajah Bendahara Kalantiaw) (sometimes spelled Kalantiao) was once considered an important part of Philippine history as the one who created the first legal code in the Philippines, known as the Code of Kalantiaw in 1433. He was co ...

myth to be a hoax in 2005. Both the Kalantiaw and Tawalisi- Pangasinan connections were called into dispute by historian William Henry Scott, but his findings were ignored by the Marcos regime, who had codified Kalantiaw and Urduja's place in Philippine history. Due to the political nature of historical education in the Philippines, both the Urduja and Kalantiaw legends continue to be a semi-historical part of Philippine education. Both Sir

Henry Yule Sir Henry Yule (1 May 1820 – 30 December 1889) was a Scottish Orientalist and geographer. He published many travel books, including translations of the work of Marco Polo and ''Mirabilia'' by the 14th-century Dominican Friar Jordanus. ...

and William Henry Scott consider Tawilisi and its warrior-princess

to be "fabulous, fairy-tale, fiction".William Henry Scott, ''Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History'', , p.83

References

{{reflist 14th century in Asia