The Oxford History of Islam by Esposito John L.;

Author:Esposito, John L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 1999-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Early Muslim Kingdoms of Acheh

Acheh was the first region of modern-day Indonesia in which Muslim kingdoms were founded. Marco Polo observed a Muslim king on the north coast of Sumatra in 1292, more than a half century before the oceanic voyage of Ibn Battutah landed him further to the south on the same island. The Portuguese voyager Tome Pires, writing in the early sixteenth century, provided the earliest ethnographic record of Acheh. His account reinforces the notion of fragmentation: the center is held together by a strong ruler, but the surrounding villages both protect and challenge the harbor cities. There are no city walls, no forts, no mountain castles but instead a system of constant exchange and negotiation. The rulers of Acheh are identified as orthodox Muslims holding sway over a splendid court. Their wealth depended on the tribute that they levied from neighboring regions and also from ships that used the harbor at Acheh.

Later the rulers of Acheh were able to benefit from overseas ties to powerful Muslim allies, both in India (the Mughals) and Turkey (the Ottomans). Yet they never subdued the interior of the island. Even when the Achinese empire was at its height, during the second half of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, the sultan’s authority was confined to the immediate vicinity of the capital. Acheh itsef was divided into many smaller districts, each governed by hereditary chiefs who constantly feuded with one another. It was the prince of the port of Acheh who served as the common overlord and carried the title of sultan.

It is tempting to see parallels with the Mughals, because the seal of the sultan of Acheh was based on a ninefold pattern, as was that of the Mughal emperors. A mid-ninteenth century coin, which traces the Achinese royal lineage back to the early thirteenth century, further suggested continuity with South Asian Muslim monarchs, but this continuity is limited by two immediate, overriding differences: first, the meaning of the seals was not the same, because the shadow of God on earth, a key epithet of the ruler in both polities, projected the great Mughal as the semidivine lord of a vast realm, while it is doubtful that more than a handful of Achinese courtiers ever attributed suprahuman qualities to the sultan of Acheh; and second, the ninefold seal was not itself the most important seal of the Achinese court. For the hereditary chiefs of Acheh, James Siegel has argued, the paramount seal was the fivefold seal, which signified the hand as a symbol of power and meant the chief’s ability not only to project power over others but also to protect his own possessions and territory.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.