Aceh Sultanate

The Aceh Sultanate, formally the Kingdom of Aceh Darussalam, was a Muslim state at the northern tip of Sumatra, in what is now the Indonesian province of Aceh. Founded in the early sixteenth century, it became one of the strongest powers around the Strait of Malacca in the 1500s and 1600s, a rival of Portuguese Malacca and Johor for the pepper and tin trade, and a renowned centre of Islamic learning. Its capital, Kutaraja, is today's Banda Aceh. The sultanate survived, much weakened, until the Dutch conquest at the start of the twentieth century.

Long before Aceh rose, the northern coast of Sumatra was a stop on Indian Ocean trade routes. Arab, Indian and Chinese writers knew a port here as Lamri, Lamuri or Ramni. The name Aceh itself is local: Portuguese and later European writers rendered it as Achin, Achem or Atjeh.

Dates given for the founding vary, from the late fifteenth century to about 1514. The first sultan, Ali Mughayat Syah, ruled from around 1514 to 1530 and from about 1520 campaigned across northern Sumatra, taking Deli, Pedir and Pasai. His son Alauddin al-Kahar, who died in 1571, extended Acehnese rule further down Sumatra and attacked both Johor and Malacca, which the Portuguese had held since their capture of the city in 1511, receiving men, guns and ships from the Ottoman Empire. With Mataram and Makassar, Aceh is sometimes counted among the "gunpowder empires" of Southeast Asia.

The sultanate reached its height under Iskandar Muda, who ruled from 1607 to 1636. He brought most of Sumatra under his authority, conquered tin-rich Pahang on the Malay Peninsula in 1617 and for a time forced Johor to accept his overlordship. At home he centralised power, replacing the older nobility with men loyal to the throne and dividing the land into districts called mukim under local chiefs. A law code, the Adat Meukuta Alam, is attributed to his reign. His great fleet was lost in 1629 in a failed attack on Malacca, when Portuguese and Johor forces destroyed it; a Portuguese account puts Acehnese losses at 19,000 men. Aceh nevertheless took Kedah the same year.

After Iskandar Thani (1636–1641), four queens ruled in succession from 1641 to 1699, beginning with Safiatuddin Tajul Alam. In this period regional chiefs, especially the rulers of the pepper ports, grew more independent, and the sultan's office became increasingly symbolic. Aceh regarded itself as the successor of Pasai, the region's first Muslim kingdom, and was known as the "porch of Mecca". Scholars such as Hamzah Fansuri, Abdurrauf of Singkil and the Indian-born Nuruddin ar-Raniri wrote and translated religious works in Malay there. The economy rested on exports of pepper, cloves, nutmeg, betel nut and tin, and the state used gold coinage.

A Bugis dynasty took the throne in 1727. By the 1820s Aceh grew more than half of the world's pepper, and the ruler Tuanku Ibrahim, later Sultan Ali Alauddin Mansur Syah (1857–1870), restored some central authority. Britain had long protected Aceh's independence, but the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Sumatra, part of the treaties of 1870–1871, left the whole island open to Dutch control. The Aceh War began in 1873. Dutch troops took the palace in January 1874, but resistance continued for decades, led by local lords and then by religious leaders. The last sultan surrendered in 1903 and was exiled in 1907, after which no successor was named; armed resistance went on until about 1912. Aceh became part of the Dutch East Indies and later of Indonesia.

Our 1500, 1530 and 1600 maps draw this sultanate under the label "Aceh", in northern Sumatra. The sultanate itself lasted until 1903, long after the last map that draws it.