Talk:Abu Bakar of Johor

Paragraph notice removed
I have removed the following paragraph, which is an opinion (revision ):

"I would like to make some correction with regards to the Wikipedia mentioning on Abu Bakar of Johor place of death. My great grand father Sir Abu Baker never died in London.The one that died in London is Temenggong Abu Bakar. My great grand father died as an ordinary man in Malaysia on 1935. We have our great-grand father dead certificate through the land that been awarded by Sultan Salehudin of Selangor at Klang."


 * 1) There is only one Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor. I do not know if there are other "Sultan Abu Bakar", though I believe that there is one in Selangor. FYI, Sultan Abu Bakar is an disamibfuation page.
 * 2) If you may want to know more about putting up notices of opinions, perhaps you may want to look to WikiProject Malaysia? Our friends there will nevertheless be happy to assist your enquiries. It would be good that you place your opinions on the talk page here, as in Talk page guideline, not the article. Tahnks! Mr Tan (talk) 06:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Move
I have moved the article, after agreement at Good Article review, from Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor to Abu Bakar of Johor. The rationale is based on Naming conventions (names and titles), which applies to all Western and Islamic monarchs (and thus also Malaysian). "Pre-emptively disambiguate the names of kings, queens regnant, and many emperors and empresses regnant in the format "{Monarch's first name and ordinal} of {Country}", omitting the royal or imperial titles. Examples: Edward I of England; Alfonso XII of Spain; Henry I of France."

All articles on Wikipedia should follow their respective naming conventions. Disagreement about the naming convention itself should be discussed on at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles), rather than here. Mr Tan (talk) 13:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090227103303/http://www.irda.com.my/pdf/cdp/16._Chapter13_-_Johor_Bahru_City_Centre.pdf to http://www.irda.com.my/pdf/cdp/16._Chapter13_-_Johor_Bahru_City_Centre.pdf

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Abu Bakar of Johor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://www.jb-tionghua.org.my/introduction/introduction5.htm
 * Added tag to http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/JohorBuzz/Monday/MyJohor/20081214175430/Article/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090403202842/http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/JohorBuzz/Monday/MyJohor/2518224/Article/index_html to http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/JohorBuzz/Monday/MyJohor/2518224/Article/index_html

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Identities of the women in the photographs purportedly depicting the sultan's wife/wives
There appears to be much speculation surrounding the identities of the women in the photographs below, particularly the woman in the striped dress:

This has, unfortunately, resulted in conflicting and inconsistent edits to the article. I have taken a closer look at this ongoing mystery and I can conclude with certainty that the lady in the striped dress is actually Sultanah Khadijah Khanum, not Cecilia Lange, known as Zubaidah. Let's set the record straight once and for all.

The first photo
Regarding the first photograph (File:CLange.jpg), its page at Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CLange.jpg) describes the portrait thus:

Cecilia Catherina Lange (Zubaidah bt Abdullah), the Sultanah of Johor. Lange is the daughter of Mads Johansen Lange and his Chinese wife Nonna Sangnio; consort to Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor and mother of Sultan Ibrahim of Johor. Even though the National Archives website declared that its works are protected under copyright, works that have lapsed at least 50/70 years or more (depending on the country). See pg 81 of. Also, considering that Johor(e) was an Unfederated Malay State under British tutelage, the PD-British Gov copyright laws qualify for this image, and for any image for that matter; photograph taken more than 100 years ago.

Source given was:. The Commons page also states, inter alia, that "this copy was downloaded from the Singapore National Archives".

None of the given links work. I have searched the website of the Singapore National Archives as well Malaysia's Arkib Negara for this particular photo to no avail either. If someone is able find something on those websites, very much appreciated.

At least one person, User:Arthur_Hirai, has contended in their edit that the picture is actually not Cecilia Lange, called Zubaidah, but rather the Sultan's fourth wife, Khadijah Khanum the Circassian. I concur with this finding for the following reasons:

1. A search on Geni.com (a reputable genealogy website with its own Wikipedia page) turns up this result about Khadijah Khanum:

2. More compellingly, there is a ResearchGate paper featuring a useful excerpt from a contemporary source, Shaer Almarhoem Beginda Sultan Abubakar di Negri Johor by Na Tien Piet (Singapore, 1896, British Library 14626.a.6). Featured is an illustration of a woman with the caption "Sultana Katidja". This illustration is clearly based on the photograph labelled on Commons as "File:CLange.jpg". Given that this is a contemporary source from 1896, it can only be concluded that the label "CLange" is erroneous, as is its description on Commons claiming that the subject is Cecilia Lange/Zubaidah.

Conversely, let's look at some results for "Cecilia Catharina/Catherina Lange/Zubaidah":

1. Geni.com provides us with this, "Encik Puan Besar Zubaidah Binti Abdullah (Cecilia Catherina Lange), Nee [sic]". She is, quite obviously, a different woman from the Commons photograph labelled "CLange".

2. To cross-confirm this, here is a photo of the Sultan with a woman identified as his wife, "Baginda Enche' Besar Zubaidah Binti Abdullah", "nama asal Cecilia Catherina Lange". Admittedly less reliable since it is taken from a blog, but nevertheless still persuasive: the photo is clearly the same woman at a younger age, holding a child.

3. Here is the same photo, colourised.

It is therefore conclusive that the woman in the striped dress is, in fact, Khadijah Khanum, not Cecilia Catherina Lange/Zubaidah. I will include a caveat in the Commons description and remove the photo in other articles where she is wrongly identified as Cecilia Lange.

The second photo
The second photo was actually uploaded earlier than the first photo. 

When it was first included in the article by User:Jeblat, they captioned it "The Sultanah of Johor, Khadijah Khanum in the company of an unknown lady". The source for this photograph, from the collection of Leiden University, can be found here. The source does not mention the Sultanah by name, but from what has been demonstrated above, Jeblat's caption was, in fact, correct in identifying the Sultanah as Khadijah Khanum.

Subsequently, there took place a series of edits (thankfully not quite amounting to an edit war) changing the Sultanah's name back and forth from "Khadijah Khanum" to "Cecilia Lange/Zubaidah". 

At one point things became so mixed up that the second (unknown) woman was even misidentified as Cecilia Lange/Zubaidah. User:Battang then made a further edit here claiming that the second woman is the Sultan's third wife, Fatimah Wong (note their use of the weasel word "probably"). As I pointed out in my ensuing edit, this was pure speculation, not backed up by any cites.

1. Geni.com has this entry for Sultanah Fatimah Wong Abdullah. Again, the visual evidence is clear that this is not the same woman as the second lady in the photograph.

2. Multiple sources feature photographs of Sultanah Fatimah Wong, none of which even remotely resemble the unknown woman in the photograph. The photos of Sultanah Fatimah in these blogs and/or social media posts are taken from the Chinese History Museum and Arkib Negara Malaysia, both authoritative.

3. One detail strikes me above all. The photo was taken "circa 1900", according to the original source. Sultanah Fatimah Wong Abdullah passed away on 25 February 1891. Following that logic, Her Highness, nine years dead, had come back from the grave just to have her photo taken with the woman her husband later married. One for the album.

I believe the matter is settled: the second photo is that of Sultanah Khadijah Khanum in the company of a lady whose name, until further information comes to light, is unfortunately lost to history. Yekshemesh (talk) 21:25, 2 December 2021 (UTC)