The Portuguese and the Straits of Melaka, 1575-1619: Power, Trade and Diplomacy

Annex II: The Sultanate of Aceh: Genealogical Questions and Problems

256 The Sultanate of Aceh: Genealogical Questions and Problems The genealogy of the sultans of Aceh is less confused than that of Johor during the period under study. Also, another advantage is the greater attention that this sultanate and its political history have received from scholars. However, some doubts remain, especially with regard to the dynastic crisis of the years between 1586 and 1589. Anyway, the chronology is far easier to reconstruct. The most important Malay sources for this period consist, essentially, of two works: the Bustan us-Salatin and the Hikayat Aceh. Both pose the same problem for the historian: although they are chronologically close to the events that they relate (they were produced in the early 17th century), their preparation conformed to a well-defined political objective: to exalt the figures of the sultans who commissioned them, Iskandar Thani and his predecessor Iskandar Muda, respectively. The second work is especially significant as it entailed the preparation of a suitable genealogy for the sultan, attributing to him royal origins that he clearly did not possess. The chronology of the sultans of Aceh up until the crisis of 1579 has already been prepared in detail, by cross-referencing European and A N N E X II The Sultanate of Aceh: Genealogical Questions and Problems 257 Malay sources.1 Denys Lombard also presents a chronology covering the 16th century and part of the 17th century.2 In this way, although it is unlikely that significant new information will be presented, one must gather the available data about dynastic questions in the sultanate during the 16th and 17th centuries, suggesting some ideas for the crisis of 1586–89. The dynastic history of Aceh during this period can be divided into three phases: until 1579, the year in which a grave internal crisis took place and a royal lineage came to an end; 1579–89, the period of the so-called ‘foreign sultans’ in which the throne was occupied by characters from other sultanates who did not, however, manage to achieve a continuity of the lineage; and from 1589, when Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Mukammil took power and founded a new dynasty. Until 1579 the genealogical history of Aceh does not present great difficulties. The most important name is, without doubt, that of Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar, although it was his father, Ali Mughayat Syah, who was, in Lombard’s words, ‘The true founder of Acehnese power’.3 However, it was only under Alauddin that Aceh projected itself as a great regional power, champion of Islam and privileged agent of the anti-Portuguese structures throughout the Indian Ocean. It was during his rule that Acehnese contacts with the Ottoman Empire became consistent and it was also the period when the sultanate’s expansion along the eastern coast of Sumatra led to closer ties between Johor and the Portuguese. He was succeeded by his son Ali Riayat Syah,4 who continued his father’s course of action, proceeding with the policy of exerting growing pressure on Melaka during the great sieges of the 1570s. This succession was contested by his brother Mughal, the prince of Priaman, who conspired against him but was discovered and executed. There is some 1 Alves, O Domínio do Norte de Sumatra, p. 190. 2 Lombard, Le Sultanat d’Atjéh …, Ap. I, pp. 185–186. 3 Ibid., p. 37. 4 Jorge de Lemos was not very far from the truth when he affirmed that Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahar had left his sons ‘as tetrarchs of certain districts of cities and towns of the coast, subordinated to the oldest one’, for this rivalry would cause instability in the subsequent years (Lemos, ‘Hystoria dos Cercos …’, fl. 62v.). 258 The Portuguese and the Straits of Melaka, 1575–1619 information in Portuguese sources that can help to explain the difficulties that this sultan experienced in imposing his authority: the fact that he was a second son, his brother, the first-born son and original heir to the throne having perished during the attack on Melaka in 1568.5 Thus his reign was afflicted by a climate of conspiracy that proved to be his greatest concern.6 As has already been explained, he married one of his daughters to the young Abdul Jalil, heir to the throne of Johor, under the tutelage of his uncle Raja Omar/Ali Jalla. In 1579 Ali Riayat Syah died, paving the way...