Rajah Sulayman (Maharlika Timeline)

Rajah Sulayman, sometimes referred to as Sulayman III (Sanskrit: स्ललैअह्, Baybayin: ᜐᜓᜎᜌ᜔ᜋᜈ᜔, Abecedario: Suláimán) (1558–1575), was the Rajah or paramount ruler of the Rajahnate of Maynila, a fortified Tagalog Muslim polity which was a vassal to the Brunei Sultanate, on the southern half of the Pasig River delta, by the time Spanish colonizers arrived in the early 1570s.

Sulayman - along with his co-ruler Rajah Matanda of Maynila and Lakan Dula, who ruled the neighboring polity of Tondo - was one of three monarchs who figured most significantly in the Spanish conquest of the Port of Manila and the Pasig River delta. Spanish accounts describe him as the most aggressive of the three rulers – a characteristic chalked up to his youth relative to the other two rulers.

In 1570, he waged a successful war against the forces of Martin de Goiti, slaying Martin de Goiti himself. Therefore, the Kingdom of Maynila remained independent, until the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi's forces in 1575. This time, the Muslim armies of the Pasig River area had doubled in size, and were armed with cannons, and other firepower - thanks to trade in gunpowder with China. This expedition once-more, failed.

He was penultimate indigenous paramount ruler (Rajah) in the Pasig River Delta era: his adoptive son, baptized Agustin de Legaspi upon conversion to Roman Catholicism (renamed again to Sri Bunao upon converting to Islam in Brunei), was proclaimed Paramount ruler of Tondo upon the death of Lakan Dula, but he, along with most of Lakan Dula's sons and most of Sulayman's adoptive sons were killed in the 1587–1588 Battle of Tondo.

Along with Sultan Kudarat of Maguindanao, he is considered one of the fiercest Muslim rulers of Maharlika, and many historians claim that if it wasn't for his victories against the Spaniards, Manila and the other regions in the south-central Luzon would have been conquered and forcefully Christianized.