The first recorded references to Brunei are in documents regarding China’s trading connections with ‘Puni’ in the 6th century AD during the Tang dynasty. Before the region embraced Islam, Brunei was within the boundaries of the Sumatran Srivijaya empire, then the Majapahit empire of Java. It may be hard to believe considering the country’s current diminutive size, but in the 15th and 16th centuries the sultanate held sway throughout Borneo and into the Philippines.