She charted a self-narrated Malay maritime engineering dominance only to be the naval architect of her own academic eviction

It turns out that Malays teaching ancient Romans everything the latter knew about maritime engineering wasn’t quite enough to keep someone employed in the “busuk” social media era. Dr Solehah Yaacob—the professor who famously rewrote naval history by claiming that the in-the-know Malays tutored the unsophisticated Romans in shipbuilding—was quietly let go from her Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) post back in April. Apparently, the university market just isn’t ready for historical revisionism quite that adventurous. It is rare and rather fascinating that an academic could so stunningly dispense with the burdensome formalities of evidence. Apparently, archives, excavations, or peer review simply gave way to summoning sweeping civilisational breakthroughs out of thin air. Naturally, the logical next step for someone whose scholarship exists entirely detached from reality is to seek legal arbitration for its consequences. She is now referring what her supporters call “unfair dismissal” to the industrial court, the official referee for when a boss gives you the boot and you refuse to go quietly. Because apparently, getting sacked for fanfiction of ancient naval superpowers is just a hostile labour practice.

Picture this in court, where Ms Yaacob would so vividly describe Rome, 200 BCE. Julius Caesar, toga slightly askew, nervously clutching a papyrus. He’s late for class. The Malay master shipwright, Professor Hang Tuah III, is already chalking diagrams of outriggers on the blackboard. “Hari ini, Romans,” he intones, “we shall learn how to lash bamboo with rattan. Forget your triremes—those are so Eurocentric.’ The Romans scribble furiously, their wax tablets smoking from the speed. One student raises a hand: ‘But sir, what of our Mediterranean tradition?’ The Malay master sighs: “Tak, tak, tak. You will now build sampans. And remember—no sampan, no empire.” And this how it might beautifully end and inspire Shakespeare: Caesar dropped his stylus, stared down at his half-finished decree for the Republic, and whispered into the quiet courtroom, “Et tu, cikgu?” History, as it turns out, is written by the victors—provided they pass their introductory bamboo-lashing module.

It is rare and rather fascinating that an academic could so stunningly dispense with the burdensome formalities of evidence

Even a battle-hardened laksamana (admiral) would find it hard to navigate the murky depths of her assertion. Ms Yaacob is, foremost a linguist by training, with her scholarship rooted in Arabic syntax, rhetoric, and linguistic philosophy. Which makes her sudden lurch into speculative historical cosplay all the more alarming. It’s not just that her claims are fanciful—it’s that they’re disciplinary trespasses. She uses the prestige of linguistics to masquerade as a historian, but without the methodological scaffolding. That’s why the spectacle feels so misplaced. It’s a scholar stepping outside her lorong, and then treating myth as fact. The irony practically begs for parody: Here is a linguist who can parse the finest shades of Arabic, yet insists Romans belajar shipbuilding from the Malays. It’s like watching a lawyer ditch the Penal Code to day-trade crypto based on what their bomoh saw in a bowl of bunga rampai. She is not a historian, and that distinction sharpens the critique. Her collapse isn’t just scholarly; it’s disciplinary. Because looking at it any other way would require a functioning imagination, and, heaven forbid, we stretch ourselves like hers.

In all her public/social media appearances, Ms Yaacob wears a tudong with the kind of fierce confidence that makes you wonder if you’re the one underdressed. Only Vivy Yusof wears it with more elan, especially in court. The vocally-relentless linguist presents herself as a conservative, projecting modesty, discipline, and orthodoxy. Yet her thinking veers into flamboyant spectacle. Last year, a viral video showed her asserting that ancient Malays could “terbang (fly)” and their pahlawan (heros) even taught the Chinese “flying kung fu”. The untold chronicles of the Nusantara ‘air force’? Early this year, she delightfully claimed that the abundance of iron ore in ancient Kedah was a cosmic courtesy of meteorite strikes. In the end, what enchantingly animated her rhetoric, even if unhinged, wasn’t a coherent nationalism (which would tie Malay prestige to the contemporary Malaysian state), but ethnic pride—a story that the Malay civilisation is ancient, clever, and shaped a massive part of the world. Solehah Yaacob’s crusade isn’t about modern nation-building; it’s about a grand, self-consolatory fairy tale of ancient global importance. We really should leave Internet hobbyism where it belongs: TikTok and the like, not the teater kuliah.

Ilustrasi: Jamal Shahrudin