Romans learnt shipbuilding from Malays? Malaysian academia’s integrity in question after claim

KUALA LUMPUR – A Malaysian university lecturer’s claim that ancient Romans learnt shipbuilding from the Malays has triggered controversy over academic standards at Malaysia’s universities.

The uproar, amplified by a wave of memes and jokes by online users, has now forced the government, university bodies and senior researchers to step in – with the issue of academic integrity debated in Parliament on Nov 10.

Despite nationwide backlash and mockery, Arabic language lecturer Solehah Yaacob, from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), has doubled down on her assertion.

“My hypothesis, grounded in classical Arabic sources, proposes that the Romans acquired aspects of the art of shipbuilding from the peoples of the Malay Archipelago,” Professor Solehah said in a Facebook post on Nov 9.

She argued that the Malays, unlike “largely continental” Europeans, were a maritime civilisation with “superior nautical knowledge”.

The

remarks were first made during a public lecture

at a mosque in Selangor on Dec 31, 2022, but came under public spotlight after a video of it was uploaded on YouTube on Oct 31, 2025.

Her lecture was posted on Nota Kuliah, a YouTube channel featuring religious sermons, garnering some 27,000 views. The channel’s most popular video, with over 476,000 views, was of a religious teacher claiming in June 2025 that Israel is afraid of the rise of Malaysians and Indonesians.

“During the past few days, I have been the victim of a media lynching,” Prof Solehah wrote in the same post.

“My hypothesis concerning the achievements of the Malays and the borrowings of the Romans may be right or wrong. However, in both our academic and Islamic traditions, we are taught to respect differing opinions.”

The row reached Parliament on Nov 10, when at least two government lawmakers pressed the National Unity Ministry to address the controversy.

Democratic Action Party MP Syerleena Abdul Rashid said many historians have debunked the lecturer’s assertions as “baseless manipulation of history”.

“History must be based on authentic evidence, not on myth or fantasy,” she was quoted as saying by the Malaysiakini news site.

Umno MP Shamshulkahar Deli said such claims had sparked widespread ridicule online.

“These issues have created polemics in our society, and I feel uneasy when history becomes a joke and is ridiculed on social media. Any statement or claim that touches on a historical figure or civilisation must be backed by strong evidence and thorough academic research,” he said.

But Prof Solehah found a supporter in an opposition MP from Parti Islam SeMalaysia, Mr Wan Razali Wan Nor, who urged the ministry to support further research instead of dismissing the lecturer.

The parliamentary divide mirrors broader public reaction online.

Prof Solehah has built a sizeable following of about 164,000 on Facebook, and garnered not just brickbats but also supportive comments on her social media. Her Nov 9 post responding to the criticisms drew 403 comments and was shared 371 times, underscoring her popularity and the reach of her ideas.

This was not the first time she has made divisive claims. She had said in a podcast on Sept 24 – hosted by Gabungan Nasionalis, a Malay-Muslim non-governmental organisation coalition – that ancient Malays could fly, and had passed this skill to Chinese martial artists.

Chinese martial artists are usually depicted as circumventing gravity, flying and performing superhuman feats in wuxia, a Chinese fantasy fiction genre.

On Nov 10, independent scholar Sharifah Munirah Alatas called for a 2018 academic article published in Universiti Malaya’s Jurnal Al-Tamaddun to be retracted for citing a satirical article as one of its sources.

Dr Sharifah Munirah said the paper had included a paragraph asserting that the ancient Greek civilisation was “entirely fabricated” by historians, citing a 2010 article by US satirical news website The Onion. While she did not name the lecturer, the paper went viral on the Reddit forum, where Prof Solehah was named as the author.

Malaysian academics have warned that pseudo-historical narratives, such as the claim made by Prof Solehah, risk distorting public understanding and undermining the sector’s credibility.

Prof Solehah was criticised by a fellow academic after she made her remarks. Professor Emeritus Wan Ramli Wan Daud, a historian of Malay technology at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, told the Malay-language Sinar Harian daily on Nov 6 that

there is no archaeological evidence

or historical record to back her claims.

In response to the uproar over Prof Solehah’s remarks, IIUM on Nov 6 expressed regret over the lecturer’s remarks, which had affected its academic integrity and the university’s image. But the university also described the claims as being made in her “personal capacity”, a stance that has drawn criticism.

Meanwhile, IIUM’s Academic Staff Association had on Nov 5 urged the university to take firm action against academics whose conduct breaches “ethical, professional, and academic integrity standards”, stressing that the “credibility of (IIUM) depends on the integrity, accountability and professionalism of its academic staff”.

Higher Education Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir also urged academics to “focus on their own areas of specialisation”. Scholars may offer opinions within their fields, he said, but commenting beyond one’s expertise “is not ideal” and risks eroding trust in Malaysian higher education.

“When a professor in a technical field speaks as though they are an expert in an unrelated area – even if their views may be reasonable – such remarks often raise questions in the academic community when presented as personal expertise,” he told reporters on Nov 5.

The remarks made by Prof Solehah were the latest in a series of outlandish or unsubstantiated claims in Malaysian academia that have prompted questions about scholarly rigour.

In January 2024, French historian Serge Jardin challenged a Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) paper on Malay maritime history that, he said, misidentified a Foochow pole junk from China as a Malay jong. He also accused the paper of misattributing a photo from the UK’s Royal Museums of Greenwich as coming from the Maritime Museum of Jakarta.

In addition, Mr Jardin argued that the authors’ use of the term “galley” to describe a vessel named Mendam Berah in the Malay epic Hikayat Hang Tuah was historically inaccurate.

UPM defended the paper, saying it had undergone blind peer review by external experts and that differences in interpretation should be debated professionally, not on social media.

In 2018, the scientific community panned a Malaysian Archaeology Association historian, Madam Zaharah Sulaiman, for claiming that “Malay genes” were the second oldest in the world and had originated from a hypothetical “Sundaland” in the South-east Asian region.

Her claim was rebutted by researchers from the Human Genome Organisation, and she was accused of misrepresenting its findings.

And in 2013, Madam Zaharah claimed that the influx of Chinese migrants into the Malay archipelago, including Malaysia, had been part of a “southbound invasion” from China that was sometimes backed by Western powers.