Sharif Saif al-Alam — born Sayyid Abdullah — was, in Kreemer’s history, the rival sultan of Atjèh who was set up against Sultan Ala ad-din Djauhar al-Alam Shah by a powerful political party that had declared the latter deposed in 1805. He was the son of “een rijk Arabisch koopman te Poelau Pinang” — “a rich Arab merchant at Penang” — and his accession marks the beginning of the long Atjèhnese succession struggle that would draw in the British and culminate in the treaty of 1819 and the London treaty of 1824.
The deposition of Jauhar Alum and the accession of Saif al-Alam
Kreemer records that Sultan Ala ad-din Djauhar al-Alam Shah “kreeg een machtige politieke partij tegen zich, die hem van den troon vervallen verklaarde, zoodat hij in 1805 naar Pidië moest uitwijken. De tegenpartij droeg nu de regeering op aan Sajjid Abd allah — zoon van een rijk Arabisch koopman te Poelau Pinang — met den titel van Sjarïf Saif al-alam. Van nu af begon een langdurige strijd tusschen de beide mededingers naar den troon” — “got a powerful political party against him, which declared him deposed from the throne, so that in 1805 he had to flee to Pidië. The opposing party now conferred the government on Sayyid Abdullah — son of a rich Arab merchant at Penang — with the title of Sharif Saif al-Alam. From then on began a prolonged struggle between the two rivals for the throne.”
The British intervention of 1818–1819
The dual sultanate — Jauhar at Pidië, Saif al-Alam at the capital — persisted until 1818, when the British, fearing the expansion of Dutch influence after the restoration of Dutch authority in the Indies, chose the party of Jauhar. “Zij kozen de partij van Soeltan Djauhar en sloten in 1819 met hem een overeenkomst, waarbij zij het recht bedongen om zich te Atjèh te vestigen met uitsluiting van alle andere natiën” — “They chose the party of Sultan Djauhar and concluded in 1819 an agreement with him, by which they stipulated the right to establish themselves at Atjèh with the exclusion of all other nations.” This agreement — the treaty of 1819 — would prove to be a “dead letter,” but its Article 6 would become the basis of British claims to suzerainty over Atjèh for the next half-century.
Significance
In Kreemer’s narrative, Saif al-Alam’s accession is the opening episode of the nineteenth-century Atjèhnese succession dispute — the dispute that would draw the British into Atjèhnese affairs, produce the treaty of 1819, and leave the London treaty of 1824 with its fateful reservation of Atjèhnese independence. The fact that Saif al-Alam was the son of a Penang-based Arab merchant — and thus a figure with ready access to British Penang — is itself a measure of how deeply the politics of the Atjèhnese succession were already entangled with European commercial and diplomatic networks in the Strait.
See Also
- Acheh
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824
- Penang
- Pidië
- Banda Acheh
- 1805
- 1818
- 1819
Source
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Eerste Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1922. Hoofdstuk I, A (“Oudste geschiedenis tot 1824”), blz. 9.