Sultan Saleiman Iskander — Sultan Sulaiman Iskandar — was the Sultan of Atjeh whose death in 1837 precipitated the succession crisis out of which Habib Abdoe’r Rachman’s regency for the young Toeankoe Machmoed emerged. He is named in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 as the deceased sultan whose widow Potjoet — daughter of Toekoe Moeda Baid — was afterwards married by the Habib, and as the father of the prince whom the Habib wished to install as Sultan.
The succession of 1837
The Atjeh-Album records that the death of Sultan Saleiman Iskander in 1837 opened a disputed succession. The late Sultan’s son — Toeankoe Machmoed — was a minor, and was in the custody of Toekoe Moeda Baid, oeloebalang of the VII Moekims, at his kampong of Tjot Bada. Habib Abdoe’r Rachman wished to install the prince as Sultan and to act as regent during his minority. To this end the Habib married the prince’s mother — the widow of Saleiman Iskander, Potjoet, daughter of Toekoe Moeda Baid — thereby binding himself to the kinship network of the late Sultan and consolidating his claim to the regency. The marriage was, however, deferred by Toekoe Moeda Baid, who accepted a payment of 400 dollars for the marriage promise but repeatedly postponed the actual delivery of the bride, until the Habib was forced to march on Tjot Bada with a force of two thousand men to compel the surrender.
The Habib’s regency
The Atjeh-Album records that, after the death of Sultan Saleiman Iskander, the installation of Toeankoe Machmoed as Sultan under the Habib’s regency was the principal achievement of the Habib’s early career at the Atjehnese court. The regency was, in turn, the period of the Habib’s greatest political influence — the period during which he was confirmed as Grootvizier and during which he proposed to the young Sultan that the Dutch be admitted to Atjehnese territory for the purposes of trade.
Significance
Sultan Saleiman Iskander’s significance in the documentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog is as the Sultan whose death in 1837 opened the succession crisis that produced the Habib’s regency — the period of the most sustained centralisation of authority in the late Atjehnese sultanate. His appearance in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 is brief, but his death is the structural event on which the Habib’s career turns, and his widow Potjoet’s remarriage to the Habib is the marriage alliance that bound the Habib to the kinship network of the late Sultan.
See Also
- Toeankoe Machmoed
- Habib Abdurrahman Zahir
- Toekoe Moeda Baid
- Potjoet
- Tjot Bada
- VII Moekims
- Kraton of Aceh
- Aceh War
- 1837
- Atjeh-Album (Eigen Haard, 1896)
Source
Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 14–15 (De Geestelijkheid in Atjeh — Habib Abdoe’r Rachman).