The
Sultanate of Aceh was a sultanate centered in the modern area of Aceh Province,
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
,
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, which was a major regional power in the 16th and 17th centuries, before experiencing a long period of decline. Its capital was Kutaraja, the present
Banda AcehBanda Aceh is the provincial capital and largest city of Aceh, Indonesia, located on the island of Sumatra, with an elevation of 21 meters. The population was approximately 260,000 in 2006...
. At its peak it was a formidable enemy of the sultanate of
JohorJohor , also known as Johore by the British, is a Malaysian state, located in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the most well developed states in Malaysia...
and
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
-controlled
MalaccaMalacca is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south. The capital is Malacca Town...
, both on the Malayan Peninsula, as all three attempted to control the trade through the
Strait of MalaccaThe Strait of Malacca is a narrow, 805 km stretch of water between Peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra...
and the regional exports of
pepperBlack pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe approximately five millimetres in diameter, dark red when fully mature, containing a single...
and
tinTin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead, like the two possible oxidation states +2 and +4...
with fluctuating success.
The
Sultanate of Aceh was a sultanate centered in the modern area of Aceh Province,
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
,
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, which was a major regional power in the 16th and 17th centuries, before experiencing a long period of decline. Its capital was Kutaraja, the present
Banda AcehBanda Aceh is the provincial capital and largest city of Aceh, Indonesia, located on the island of Sumatra, with an elevation of 21 meters. The population was approximately 260,000 in 2006...
. At its peak it was a formidable enemy of the sultanate of
JohorJohor , also known as Johore by the British, is a Malaysian state, located in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the most well developed states in Malaysia...
and
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
-controlled
MalaccaMalacca is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south. The capital is Malacca Town...
, both on the Malayan Peninsula, as all three attempted to control the trade through the
Strait of MalaccaThe Strait of Malacca is a narrow, 805 km stretch of water between Peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra...
and the regional exports of
pepperBlack pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe approximately five millimetres in diameter, dark red when fully mature, containing a single...
and
tinTin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead, like the two possible oxidation states +2 and +4...
with fluctuating success. In addition to its considerable military strength, the court of Aceh became a noted center of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic scholarship and trade.
Foundation and rise
Aceh's origins are unquestionably
ChamCham may refer to:*Cham Albanians, also spelled as Çam, a people originating in northern Greece of Albanian descent*Cham people, a people living in Vietnam and Cambodia**Cham language, the language of the Cham people...
, as the
ChampaThe kingdom of Champa was an Indianized kingdom of Malayo-Polynesian origins and controlled what is now southern and central Vietnam from approximately the 7th century through to 1832...
king Syah Pau Kubah sent his son Syah Pau Ling to rule over Aceh when the capital Vijaya (Champa) in 1471 AD, was sacked by the Vietnamese. Acehnese is the only other non-Chamic language in the 11 language
Aceh-Chamic languagesThe Aceh-Chamic languages are a group of related languages spoken in mainland and insular Southeast Asia, consisting principally of Acehnese and the dozen Chamic languages...
group.
The ruler of Aceh converted to Islam in the mid-15th century. The sultanate was founded by
Ali Mughayat SyahAli Mughayat Syah was the first sultan of Aceh, reigning from c. 1514 until his death. He is considered the founder of the Aceh, and is presumed to be the same person or a relative of "Syah Pau Ling" of Champa, the son of the King of Champa Syah Pau Kubah, who fled Champa when the Vietnamese...
, who began campaigns to extend his control over northern Sumatra in 1520. His conquests included
DeliDeli is a 1,820 km² state in east Sumatra founded in 1630. A Rajadom from 1630 until 1814, the state became a sultanate in 1814 when acquiring independence from Siak....
, Pedir, and
PasaiPasai, also known as Samudera and Samudera-Pasai sometimes called Samudera Darussalam was a Muslim harbour kingdom on the north coast of Sumatra from the 13th to the 15th centuries CE. It was believed the word Samudera derived from Samudra meaning ocean in Sanskrit...
, and he attacked Aru. His son
Alauddin al-KaharAlauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar was the third sultan of Aceh, and was one of the sultanate's strongest warriors. He succeeded his brother Salahuddin in 1537 or 1539 in a royal coup...
extended the domains farther south into Sumatra, but was less successful in his attempts to gain a foothold across the strait, though he made several attacks on both Johor and Malacca, with the support along with men and firearms from
Suleiman the MagnificentSuleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566...
's
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
.
Internal dissension in the sultanate prevented another powerful sultan from appearing until 1607, when
Iskandar MudaIskandar Muda was the twelfth Sultan of Aceh, under whom the sultanate achieved its greatest territorial extent, and was the strongest power and wealthiest state in the western Indonesian archipelago and the Strait of Malacca. "Iskandar Muda" literally means "young Alexander," and his conquests...
came to the position. He extended the sultanate's control over most of Sumatra. He also conquered
PahangPahang is the third largest state in Malaysia, after Sarawak and Sabah, occupying the huge Pahang River river basin. It is bordered to the north by Kelantan, to the west by Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, to the south by Johor and to the east by Terengganu and the South China Sea.Its state...
, a tin-producing region on the Malayan Peninsula. The strength of his formidable fleet was brought to an end with a disastrous campaign against Malacca in 1629, when the combined Portuguese and Johor forces managed to destroy all his ships and 19,000 troops according to Portuguese account. Aceh forces was not destroyed, however, as Aceh was able to conquer
KedahKedah is a state of Malaysia, located in the northwestern part of Peninsular Malaysia. The state covers a total area of over 9,000 km², and it consists of the mainland and Langkawi. The mainland has relatively flat terrain, which is used to grow rice...
within the same year and taking many of its citizens to Aceh. The Sultan's son in law,
Iskandar ThaniIskandar Thani Alauddin Mughayat Syah was the thirteenth sultan of Aceh, following the powerful Iskandar Muda. Iskandar Thani was the son of the sultan of Pahang, Ahmad Syah, who was brought to Aceh in the conquest of Pahang in 1617 by Iskandar Muda...
, former prince of Pahang later became his successor. During his reign Aceh focused on internal consolidation and religious unity.
After the reign of Sultan Iskandar Sani, Aceh was ruled by a series of female sultana. Aceh previous policy of taking hostage conquered kingdoms' population made them eager to seek independence, the results are Aceh's power weakened while regional rulers gained effective power. The sultan ultimately became a largely symbolic title. By the 1680s, a Persian visitor could describe a northern Sumatra where "every corner shelters a separate king or governor and all the local rulers maintain themselves independently and do not pay tribute to any higher authority."
Culture and economy
Aceh saw itself as heir to
PasaiPasai, also known as Samudera and Samudera-Pasai sometimes called Samudera Darussalam was a Muslim harbour kingdom on the north coast of Sumatra from the 13th to the 15th centuries CE. It was believed the word Samudera derived from Samudra meaning ocean in Sanskrit...
, the first Muslim state in Southeast Asia, and continuing Muslim missionary work of Malacca after it was conquered by the Roman Catholic
PortugueseThe Portuguese people are the ethnic group or nation native to the country of Portugal, in the far west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe...
. It called itself the "veranda of
MeccaMecca , sometimes spelled Makkah is the holiest meeting site of the Islamic religion. The city is modern, cosmopolitan and whilst being closed to non-Muslims is nonetheless ethnically diverse.Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants...
," and became a center of Islamic scholarship, where the
Qur'anThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
and other Islamic texts were translated into
MalayMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
. Its notable scholars included Hamzah Pansuri, Syamsuddin of Pasai, Abdurrauf of Singkil, and the Indian
Nuruddin ar-RaniriNuruddin ibn Ali ar-Raniri was an Islamic scholar from Gujarat, India, who worked for several years in the court of the sultan of Aceh in what is now Indonesia...
.
Aceh gained wealth from its export of pepper,
nutmegNutmeg or Myristica fragrans is an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia, or Spice Islands. Until the mid 19th century this was the world's only source...
,
cloveCloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae. Cloves are native to Indonesia and India and used as a spice in cuisine all over the world...
s,
betel nutThe Areca nut is the seed of the Areca palm , which grows in much of the tropical Pacific, Asia, and parts of east Africa.-Description:...
s, and, once it conquered Pahang in 1617, tin. Low interest rates and the use of gold currency strengthened its economy. It was always somewhat fragile economically, however, because of the difficulty in providing enough surplus food to support the military and commercial adventures of the state. However, as it lost political cohesion in the 17th century, it saw its trading importance yielding to the
Dutch East India CompanyThe Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock...
, who became the dominant military and economic power in the region following the successful siege of Malacca in 1641.
Conquest by the Dutch
In the 1820s, as Aceh produced over half the world's supply of pepper, a new leader, Tuanku Ibrahim, was able to restore some authority to the sultanate and gain control over the "pepper
rajaRaja is the Hindustani term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna...
s" who were nominal vassals of the sultan by playing them off against each other. He rose to power during the sultanate of his brother, Muhammad Syah, and was able to dominate the reign of his successor Sulaiman Syah (r. 1838-1857), before taking the sultan himself, under the title Sultan Ali Alauddin Mansur Syah (1857-1870). He extended Aceh's effective control southward at just the time when the Dutch were consolidating their holdings northward. Britain, heretofore guarding the independence of Aceh in order to keep it out of Dutch hands, re-evaluated its policy and concluded the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Sumatra, which allowed for Dutch control throughout Sumatra in exchange for concessions in the
Gold CoastGold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese, in 1471. Upon their arrival, they encountered a variety of African kingdoms some of whom controlled substantial...
and equal trading rights in northern Aceh. The treaty was tantamount to a declaration of war on Aceh, and the Aceh War followed soon after in 1873. As the Dutch prepared for war, Mahmud Syah (1870-1874) appealed for international help, but no one was willing or able to assist.
In 1874 the sultan abandoned the capital, withdrawing to the hills, while the Dutch announced the annexation of Aceh. The sultan died of
choleraCholera, sometimes known as Asiatic or epidemic cholera, is an infectious gastroenteritis caused by enterotoxin-producing strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Transmission to humans occurs through eating food or drinking water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae from other cholera patients...
, as did many combatants on both sides, but the Acehnese proclaimed a grandson of Tuanku Ibrahim sultan. The rulers of Acehnese ports nominally submitted to Dutch authority in order to avoid a blockade, but they used their income to support the resistance. However, eventually many of them compromised with the Dutch, and the Dutch were able establish a fairly stable government in Aceh with their cooperation, and get the sultan to surrender in 1903. After his death in 1907, no successor was named, but the resistance continued to fight for some time. Indeed,
Hasan di TiroMuhammad Hassan di Tiro, born , is the founder of the Free Aceh Movement , an organisation which attempted to separate Aceh from Indonesia from the 1970s. It surrendered its separatist goals and was disarmed as agreed to in the Helsinki peace deal of 2005...
, who founded the
Free Aceh MovementThe Free Aceh Movement , also known as the Aceh Sumatra National Liberation Front , was a separatist group seeking independence for the Aceh region of Sumatra from Indonesia. GAM fought against Indonesian government forces in the Aceh Insurgency from 1976 to 2005, costing over 15,000 lives...
, is a descendent of the last sultan.
List of sultans
- 1496-1528 Ali Mughayat Syah
Ali Mughayat Syah was the first sultan of Aceh, reigning from c. 1514 until his death. He is considered the founder of the Aceh, and is presumed to be the same person or a relative of "Syah Pau Ling" of Champa, the son of the King of Champa Syah Pau Kubah, who fled Champa when the Vietnamese...
- 1528-1537 Salahuddin
In Indonesian history, Salahuddin was the second sultan of Aceh, reigning from 1530 to 1537 or 1539. He was the eldest son of Ali Mughayat Syah, the first sultan of Aceh. Relative to his father and brother, Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar, who deposed him, he was a weaker ruler. It is unclear whether...
- 1537-1568 Alauddin al Qahhar
- 1568-1575 Husain Ali Riayat Syah
- 1575 Muda of Aceh|Muda
- 1575-1576 Sri Alam
- 1576-1577 Zainal Abidin of Aceh|Zainal Abidin
- 1577-1589 Alauddin Mansur Syah
- 1589-1596 Buyong
- 1596-1604 Alauddin Riayat Syah Sayyid al-Mukammil
- 1604-1607 Ali Riayat Syah
- 1607-1636 Iskandar Muda
Iskandar Muda was the twelfth Sultan of Aceh, under whom the sultanate achieved its greatest territorial extent, and was the strongest power and wealthiest state in the western Indonesian archipelago and the Strait of Malacca. "Iskandar Muda" literally means "young Alexander," and his conquests...
- 1636-1641 Iskandar Thani
Iskandar Thani Alauddin Mughayat Syah was the thirteenth sultan of Aceh, following the powerful Iskandar Muda. Iskandar Thani was the son of the sultan of Pahang, Ahmad Syah, who was brought to Aceh in the conquest of Pahang in 1617 by Iskandar Muda...
- 1641-1675 Ratu Safiatuddin Tajul Alam
- 1675-1678 Ratu Naqiatuddin Nurul Alam
- 1678-1688 Ratu Zaqiatuddin Inayat Syah
- 1688-1699 Ratu Kamalat Syah Zinatuddin
- 1699-1702 Badrul Alam Syarif Hashim Jamaluddin
- 1702-1703 Perkasa Alam Syarif Lamtui
- 1703-1726 Jamal ul Alam Badrul Munir
- 1726 Jauhar ul Alam Aminuddin
- 1726-1727 Syamsul Alam
- 1727-1735 Alauddin Ahmad Syah
- 1735-1760 Alauddin Johan Syah
- 1750-1781 Mahmud Syah
- 1764-1785 Badruddin
- 1775-1781 Sulaiman Syah
- 1781-1795 Alauddin Muhammad Daud Syah
- 1795-1815 Alauddin Jauhar ul Alam
- 1815-1818 Syarif Saif ul Alam
- 1818-1824 Alauddin Jauhar ul Alam (second time)
- 1824-1838 Muhammad Syah
- 1838-1857 Sulaiman Syah
- 1857-1870 Mansur Syah
- 1870-1874 Mahmud Syah
- 1874-1903 Muhammad Daud Syah
See also