Alaedin Mahmut Shah

Properties2
tagsperson, ruler, sultan, sultanate, dutch-war-era
aliasesAlaeddin Mahmud, Alauddin Mahmud, Sultan Mahmut Shah, Alaedin Mahmut, Mahmud Shah, Sultan Alaedin Mahmut Shah

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Sultan of Acheh, reigned approximately 1752-1766, ruling in the period following the succession struggles recorded in the Hikayat Pochut Muhamat.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Alaedin Mahmut

Alaedin Mahmut, also written Alaeddin Mahmud or Alauddin Mahmud, and bearing the formal regnal name Sultan Mahmut Shah or Alaedin Mahmut Shah, was a Sultan of the latest (Bugis-origin) dynasty of Acheh, generally assigned a reign from 1781 to 1795. He is best attested in the documentary record by a sarakata (royal edict) bearing the date 1766.

The edict of 1766

Snouck Hurgronje, during his residence in Acheh, collected copies of a number of sarakata not included among those published by Van Langen. Among them he lists “one of Alaedin Mahmut dated 1766”, in close association with an edict of Jamalul-Alam dated 1689 revived by Alaedin Juhan in 1752, and with the undated edicts of Sapiatodin, Amat Shah Juhan and Badrudin Asem (Hashim). All of these dealt with “commercial and port regulations as affecting different nationalities and different kinds of merchandise, and the collection and distribution of taxes”, and included detailed customs-tariffs. They are described as “identical in spirit and intention with those published by Van Langen”, but richer in detail regarding court and festival ceremonial and the disposal of import taxes, and occasionally at variance with the latter on points of detail.

The document is one of the principal surviving testimonies of Alaedin Mahmut’s legislative activity. The discrepancy between the edict’s date of 1766 and the later conventionally-accepted regnal dates of 1781–1795 is one of those chronological puzzles that Snouck Hurgronje notes are common in Achehnese royal chronology.

Place on the ninefold seal

Alaedin Mahmut’s name appears on the ninefold seal of the pretender Sultan Muhamat Dawot, drawn up in 1879. There he is inscribed as “Sultan Malmut Shah 1781–1795” — one of the seven sultans whose names surround the pretender’s own in the central circle. The first four names on such seals — those of Sayyidi al-Mukamnal, Meukuta Alam, Tajul-alam and Sultan Ahmat Shah — recur on most Achehnese ninefold seals and represent the rulers to whom the former prosperity of Acheh and her adat-institutions are generally ascribed. The remaining names, including that of Alaedin Mahmut, were chosen by each sultan to suit his own taste.

Invocation in letters patent

In the formal letters patent granted by the pretender sultans to their chiefs — such as the document bestowed on Panglima Meuseugit Raya on 4 Rabi’ al-Awwal 1307 H (1889) — the “blessing of the mediation” of a fixed series of former monarchs is invoked. Alaedin Mahmut appears in this list as “His late Majesty Sultan Alaedin Mahmut Shah”, between Alaedin Ahmat Shah and Alaedin Muhamat Shah. The formula is purely conventional, but the place of Alaedin Mahmut in the sequence testifies to his standing in the dynastic memory.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Sultan Mahmut Shah

Sultan Mahmut Shah — known in full on his royal seals as Sultan Alaedin Mahmut Shah — was one of the last recognised sultans of Acheh, reigning in the period immediately before and during the first Dutch attack on the sultanate’s capital. He is named in the formal invocation of deceased sultans recited in the sarakata (royal edicts) of his successor Tuanku Muhamat Dawot, where his mediation is invoked alongside that of Alaedin Ahmat Shah, Alaedin Muhamat Shah, Sultan Alaedin Jauhar al-Alam Shah and Alaedin Manso Shah. His inclusion in this chain of “blessed” predecessors confirms his position within the late royal house that traced itself to Sultan Ibrahim Manso Shah (1858–1870).

Snouck Hurgronje’s account of the late sultanate is unflattering. He describes the late Dalam (the Sultan’s court) as a sunk and paralysed institution in which the sultan’s actual power was “confined to the limits of the Dalam”, though forms of address continued to suggest a wider authority. The Tuankus, scions of royal blood, were “convinced that they stood superior to the adat pôteen meureuhom and all other adats”, but were generally men of ill repute, “such for instance as had fled to the Dalam to escape a righteous blood-vengeance which threatened their lives”. It was this enfeebled court that Sultan Mahmut Shah headed when the Dutch expedition of 1873 struck at Banda Acheh.

The most consequential event of Mahmut Shah’s reign was the fall of the Dalam to the Dutch forces during the first Dutch attack in 1873. The capture of the court — called the Kraton by the Dutch — deprived the sultanate of its symbolic and administrative centre, and Snouck notes that “before the Dutch gained possession of the Dalam, the sultan had disappeared from the scene”. Sultan Mahmut Shah died shortly afterwards, leaving no successor capable of uniting the sundered country. “When Sultan Mahmut Shah died shortly after the loss of the Dalam,” Snouck writes, “it was not thought necessary even in so perilous a crisis to select from among the candidates for the succession to the throne a man before all things. They contented themselves with a child, Tuanku Muhamat Dawot”.

The choice of a child-sultan proved disastrous for organised resistance. The Achehnese War thereafter “was always separate and independent bodies of troops, led either by adat-chiefs or by some newly-arisen commanders of energetic disposition”, without any common royal direction. The sole figure who succeeded in organising the forces to “a comparatively high degree” during the early part of the war was the foreigner Sayyid Abdurrahman Zahir, not the fugitive court. Mahmut Shah’s death thus marks the practical end of the Sultanate of Acheh as a political reality, even though Sultan Alaedin Muhamat Dawot Shah Juhan and his successors continued to issue sarakata from their exile at Keumala.

See Also

Source

The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

Sultan of Acheh, reigned approximately 1752-1766, ruling in the period following the succession struggles recorded in the Hikayat Pochut Muhamat.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Alaedin Mahmut

Alaedin Mahmut, also written Alaeddin Mahmud or Alauddin Mahmud, and bearing the formal regnal name Sultan Mahmut Shah or Alaedin Mahmut Shah, was a Sultan of the latest (Bugis-origin) dynasty of Acheh, generally assigned a reign from 1781 to 1795. He is best attested in the documentary record by a sarakata (royal edict) bearing the date 1766.

The edict of 1766

Snouck Hurgronje, during his residence in Acheh, collected copies of a number of sarakata not included among those published by Van Langen. Among them he lists “one of Alaedin Mahmut dated 1766”, in close association with an edict of Jamalul-Alam dated 1689 revived by Alaedin Juhan in 1752, and with the undated edicts of Sapiatodin, Amat Shah Juhan and Badrudin Asem (Hashim). All of these dealt with “commercial and port regulations as affecting different nationalities and different kinds of merchandise, and the collection and distribution of taxes”, and included detailed customs-tariffs. They are described as “identical in spirit and intention with those published by Van Langen”, but richer in detail regarding court and festival ceremonial and the disposal of import taxes, and occasionally at variance with the latter on points of detail.

The document is one of the principal surviving testimonies of Alaedin Mahmut’s legislative activity. The discrepancy between the edict’s date of 1766 and the later conventionally-accepted regnal dates of 1781–1795 is one of those chronological puzzles that Snouck Hurgronje notes are common in Achehnese royal chronology.

Place on the ninefold seal

Alaedin Mahmut’s name appears on the ninefold seal of the pretender Sultan Muhamat Dawot, drawn up in 1879. There he is inscribed as “Sultan Malmut Shah 1781–1795” — one of the seven sultans whose names surround the pretender’s own in the central circle. The first four names on such seals — those of Sayyidi al-Mukamnal, Meukuta Alam, Tajul-alam and Sultan Ahmat Shah — recur on most Achehnese ninefold seals and represent the rulers to whom the former prosperity of Acheh and her adat-institutions are generally ascribed. The remaining names, including that of Alaedin Mahmut, were chosen by each sultan to suit his own taste.

Invocation in letters patent

In the formal letters patent granted by the pretender sultans to their chiefs — such as the document bestowed on Panglima Meuseugit Raya on 4 Rabi’ al-Awwal 1307 H (1889) — the “blessing of the mediation” of a fixed series of former monarchs is invoked. Alaedin Mahmut appears in this list as “His late Majesty Sultan Alaedin Mahmut Shah”, between Alaedin Ahmat Shah and Alaedin Muhamat Shah. The formula is purely conventional, but the place of Alaedin Mahmut in the sequence testifies to his standing in the dynastic memory.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Sultan Mahmut Shah

Sultan Mahmut Shah — known in full on his royal seals as Sultan Alaedin Mahmut Shah — was one of the last recognised sultans of Acheh, reigning in the period immediately before and during the first Dutch attack on the sultanate’s capital. He is named in the formal invocation of deceased sultans recited in the sarakata (royal edicts) of his successor Tuanku Muhamat Dawot, where his mediation is invoked alongside that of Alaedin Ahmat Shah, Alaedin Muhamat Shah, Sultan Alaedin Jauhar al-Alam Shah and Alaedin Manso Shah. His inclusion in this chain of “blessed” predecessors confirms his position within the late royal house that traced itself to Sultan Ibrahim Manso Shah (1858–1870).

Snouck Hurgronje’s account of the late sultanate is unflattering. He describes the late Dalam (the Sultan’s court) as a sunk and paralysed institution in which the sultan’s actual power was “confined to the limits of the Dalam”, though forms of address continued to suggest a wider authority. The Tuankus, scions of royal blood, were “convinced that they stood superior to the adat pôteen meureuhom and all other adats”, but were generally men of ill repute, “such for instance as had fled to the Dalam to escape a righteous blood-vengeance which threatened their lives”. It was this enfeebled court that Sultan Mahmut Shah headed when the Dutch expedition of 1873 struck at Banda Acheh.

The most consequential event of Mahmut Shah’s reign was the fall of the Dalam to the Dutch forces during the first Dutch attack in 1873. The capture of the court — called the Kraton by the Dutch — deprived the sultanate of its symbolic and administrative centre, and Snouck notes that “before the Dutch gained possession of the Dalam, the sultan had disappeared from the scene”. Sultan Mahmut Shah died shortly afterwards, leaving no successor capable of uniting the sundered country. “When Sultan Mahmut Shah died shortly after the loss of the Dalam,” Snouck writes, “it was not thought necessary even in so perilous a crisis to select from among the candidates for the succession to the throne a man before all things. They contented themselves with a child, Tuanku Muhamat Dawot”.

The choice of a child-sultan proved disastrous for organised resistance. The Achehnese War thereafter “was always separate and independent bodies of troops, led either by adat-chiefs or by some newly-arisen commanders of energetic disposition”, without any common royal direction. The sole figure who succeeded in organising the forces to “a comparatively high degree” during the early part of the war was the foreigner Sayyid Abdurrahman Zahir, not the fugitive court. Mahmut Shah’s death thus marks the practical end of the Sultanate of Acheh as a political reality, even though Sultan Alaedin Muhamat Dawot Shah Juhan and his successors continued to issue sarakata from their exile at Keumala.

See Also

Source

The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

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