Iskandar Thani — in Kreemer’s spelling Sultan Iskandar Thanï — was King of Atjèh from 1636/1637, succeeding Meukuta Alam (Iskandar Muda) on the latter’s death in 1636. With his widow and successor Tadj al-alam Safijatoeddin, he favoured the orthodox scholar Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï; he condemned the heterodox mystics to death and had their works burned before the great mosque Beit ar-rahman. His reign represented both the end of the political greatness of the Sultanate — which had reached its zenith under Iskandar Muda — and the beginning of a religious reformation which sought to bring the practice of Acheh into conformity with the strict letter of the Shafi’ite law. The same reign that saw the death of Meukuta Alam’s political inheritance saw also the burning of the books of the Pansouri school.
Chronology
Iskandar Thani’s accession is fixed in the chronology of Achehnese letters by the testimony of the Pandit Raniri, the well-known Achehnese ulama and author, who relates in his treatise Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm (printed at Mecca in 1316 Heg., on the margin of the edition of Fath al-muʿīn) that he came to Acheh in 1637 while Iskandar Thani was king. This date is of cardinal importance for the chronology of Achehnese history, since it confirms 1636 as the correct date of the death of Meukuta Alam (Iskandar Muda), the greatest of the sultans of Aceh. The transmitted Achehnese chronicles had left the date of Meukuta Alam’s death in some uncertainty; Raniri’s statement, preserved in a work printed at Mecca and therefore free from the local Achehnese tendency to idealise or rearrange the past, settles the question. Iskandar Thani’s accession thus marks the beginning of the period of decline that followed the golden age of Meukuta Alam.
The orthodox victory
Sultan Iskandar Thanï reversed the religious policy of his predecessor Iskandar Moeda, who had favoured the heterodox mystic Sjamsoeddin van Pasè. At the instigation of Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï, who returned to Atjèh in 1637, Iskandar Thanï condemned the heterodox mystics to death:
- Sjamsoeddin van Pasè was executed
- Hamzah Pansoeri was executed
- Their works were burned before the great mosque Beit ar-rahman
The period of his reign thus saw the suppression of the heterodox mysticism of Hamzah Pansuri and his school: the disciples of Hamzah Pansuri were put to death and his books burned, an episode of religious persecution which occurred in the generation after Iskandar Muda’s reign. Raniri, himself a learned scholar of South Indian origin, was the instrument of this orthodox reaction, and his arrival in Acheh in the first year of Iskandar Thani’s reign fixed the beginning of the new religious dispensation.
Patronage of ar-Ranïrï
Iskandar Thanï commissioned Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï’s principal works. In March 1638 he gave the pandit Raniri the royal command to write a book, the Sirat al-mustaqim. He also commissioned the Boestan as-salatïn (“Garden of Kings”), begun in 1638. This patronage ensured the triumph of orthodox Islam over the heterodox mysticism that had flourished under Iskandar Moeda.
Succession
Iskandar Thanï was succeeded by his widow and successor Tadj al-alam Safijatoeddin, who continued the orthodox patronage. Her accession in 1641 marked the beginning of the vrouwenregeering (female rule) in Atjèh — the celebrated female rule of Acheh (1641–1699), the period during which the sultanate was successively held by four queens.
Significance
The reign of Iskandar Thani thus stands at a double turning-point in Achehnese history: at once the end of the political greatness of the Sultanate, which had reached its zenith under Iskandar Muda, and the beginning of a religious reformation which sought to bring the practice of Acheh into conformity with the strict letter of the Shafi’ite law. The same reign that saw the death of Meukuta Alam’s political inheritance saw also the burning of the books of the Pansouri school; and the name of Iskandar Thani is preserved in Achehnese memory chiefly as that of the prince under whom the new learning of Raniri replaced the old mysticism of the Malay poets. Kreemer’s account, in turn, stresses the institutional consequence: the orthodox victory shaped the subsequent development of Atjèhnese Islam and its institutions, and the female succession that followed Iskandar Thanï inaugurated the half-century of vrouwenregeering that would define the next phase of the sultanate’s history.
Account from Atjèh by J. Kreemer (Deel II)
Kreemer records that Iskandar Thanï reversed the religious policy of Iskandar Moeda, who had favoured the heterodox mystics Sjamsoeddin van Pasè and Hamzah Pansoerï. At the instigation of Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï — who returned to Atjèh in 1637 — the Sultan ordered the execution of Sjamsoeddin and the burning of the mystics’ books before the great mosque Beit ar-rahman (the later Meusigit Raja).
Iskandar Thanï commissioned the major compendium Boestan as-salatïn (the “Garden of kings”), which ar-Ranïrï began in 1638. This work, comprising Islamic universal history and a mirror-for-princes, was the crowning literary achievement of the orthodox reaction.
Upon Iskandar Thanï’s death in 1641, he was succeeded by his widow Tadjoel-Alam Safijatoeddin (Tadj al-alam Safïat ad-dïn Sjah), daughter of Iskandar Moeda. Kreemer marks this accession as the beginning of the vrouwenregeering (female rule, 1641–1699) and “the first step of Atjèh’s decline.”
See Also
- Acheh
- Sultan Iskandar Moeda
- Sultan Meukuta Alam
- Tadj al-alam Safijatoeddin
- Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï
- Sjamsoeddin van Pasè
- Hamzah Pansoeri
- Beit ar-rahman
- Sirat al-mustaqim
- Boestan as-salatïn
- Female rule of Acheh (1641–1699)
- Alauddin al-Qahar
- Mecca
- Meusigit Raja
- 1636
- 1637
- 1638
- 1641
- Iskander Muda
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Pieter Soury
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641)
- Justus Schouten
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Atjehsche mode
- Tayl
- Pahang
- Nur al-Din al-Raniri
- Sirat al-mustaqim
- Bustanu’s-Salatin
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Over Maleise Literatuur (1947)
Sources
The Achehnese, Vol. I and Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapters XI–XII (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”; “Juweelenhandel. Heeren Zeventien. Familieregeering”), pp. 39–47 of the numbered-letter sequence.
Over Maleise Literatuur, by Dr. C. Hooykaas, Hoogleraarte Batavia; Tweede Druk (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1947), chapter 19 (“Twee Moslimse exemplo-boeken als vorstenspiegel”), p. 173.
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.