Tuanku Muhamat Dawot

Tuanku Muhamat Dawot — in Kreemer’s spelling Moehamat Dawöt (also Mohammad Daud / Muhammad Dawud), in full Sultan Alaedin Muhamad Daud Shah Juhan, also written Sultan Muhamat Dawot Shah — was the last pretender to the sultanate of Atjèh. Proclaimed sultan as a child in 1878 (1296 H, as inscribed on his ninefold seal) on the death of Sultan Mahmut Shah shortly after the loss of the Dalam / fall of the kraton on 24 January 1874, he was raised under the guardianship of Tuanku Asem (Hashim) and maintained for more than two decades a wandering “court” at Keumala and elsewhere in Pidië territory. He finally submitted to the Dutch Government in 1903 — effectively ending the Atjèh sultanate — and was banished in 1907. For his formal style and letters patent, see Sultan Alaedin Muhamad Daud Shah Juhan.

Earlier career as Pakèh of Pidië

Before becoming pretender Sultan, Moehamat Dawöt bore the title T. Radja Pakèh Moehamat Dawöt and served as Pakèh (head) of Pidië from 1895 to 1896. He was the sixth in the line of Pakèh’s of Pidië, succeeding T. Radja Pakèh Soelöjman (1879–1895). His tenure as Pakèh was brief; he was succeeded by T. Radja Pakèh Moehamat Ali, who came under the voogdij (guardianship) of his uncle in 1896 and became self-governing after 1914.

Election as a child

When Sultan Mahmut Shah died shortly after the loss of the Dalam, Snouck Hurgronje observes that “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.” His guardian Tuanku Asem (Hashim), though “a man of royal blood most bitterly hostile to the Dutch Government,” preferred to watch the contest with interest from a distance rather than himself to take a serious share in it, much less to enter the lists as a leader. The “court,” once it had found a safe place of refuge in Pidie territory, far removed from the theatre of the conflict, resumed the condition it had been in before the war — only the scene being changed.

After the kraton fell to Dutch forces under generaal Van Swieten on 24 January 1874, Moehamat Dawöt established himself at Keumala in Pidië as the pretender Sultan. From there he issued sarakata’s (royal charters) in 1887–1888 to Gajö moefi’s (religious scholars) who paid him homage, attempting to extend his religious-political authority into the Gajöland.

Character and conduct

The young sultan, gradually emerging from childhood, soon showed “that he aspired to something very different from sharing the weal or woe of his country as leader of the contest against the Gompeuni.” True to the traditions of his house, he sought and still seeks diversion, writes Snouck, “in lawful and unlawful love, drink, fiddling, fights of animals, gambling and the pursuit of elephant and deer.” His letters to the Achehnese chiefs still always commence with the solemn admonition continually to remember “Allah, his Messenger, the departed sovereigns and ourselves”; and this last reminder takes tangible form in the latter portion of these letters in a request to forward a certain sum of money or some costly merchandise. In the Introduction, Snouck sums him up as “a nonentity in a political sense … in a position neither to do the Dutch much harm nor to help his adherents,” however much he enjoyed “the homage mingled with fear that natives are apt to give to the descendants of their tyrants.” Kreemer adds that he was known as a great patron of cricket-fighting.

Letters patent and the chab sikureu’eng

The sultan’s edicts continued to be issued in the old form. The letters patent with the ninefold seal granted to the Panglima Meuseugit Raya on 4 Rabīʿ al-awwal 1307 H (28 October 1889) is the example translated in full in Vol. I, and is reproduced as the type of its class. Other edicts confirmed Teungku Tiro in his religious authority over Great Acheh — though the “court” did so “cautiously enough,” with a deed of appointment which in appearance made no inroad on the rights of the adat-chiefs — and confirmed Teuku Uma as amīr al-baḥr (“chief of the sea”), with a mental reservation that the title “absolutely excluded the highest authority on land.” Of all these documents Snouck remarks that they are “just as solemn and pious in form as before, but of equally little consequence in practice, as they simply imprint the chab sikureu’eng on what has been already won by inheritance or by the chab limong” — the five-fold seal, i.e. the hand as the symbol of actual power. Even Teungku Tiro paid visits to his court at Keumala.

Family connections

Moehamat Dawöt was connected through his daughter Teungkoe Djam to Pö Tjoet Meurah (Tjout Nja’ Meurah), a prominent woman raised at the kraton court whose aunt had married Sultan Mantsoer Sjah (1838–1870). Pö Tjoet Meurah first married Sultan Mahmoed Sjah, then Toeankoe Mahmoed (brother of Toeankoe Asem). Pö Tjoet Meurah was the daughter of Teukoe Pakèh Dalam (former Oelèëbalang of XII Moekim’s Pidië). The family network centred on Keumala preserved a vestige of royal authority even after the sultanate’s formal end.

Submission and banishment

The pretender to the sultanate was compelled, owing to a quarrel with the local chiefs, to break up his “court” at Keumala and to settle first in one place and then in another. For the last three years (1896–1899) — that is, since the Dutch began to deal seriously with the government of Great Acheh and the subjugation of its dependencies — the pretender was obliged to lead a wandering life, seeking safety by constantly shifting his abode and finding his asylum as a rule in the North-coast districts. In the end, as Snouck records in the Introduction, “the chiefs of dependent states, the members of the Sultan’s family, and finally their head himself who in 1878 as a child had been proclaimed Pretender-Sultan, submitted almost without exception.”

Moehamat Dawöt submitted unconditionally to Dutch authority in January 1903, an event Kreemer treats as the effective end of the Atjèh sultanate. He was subsequently banished in 1907.

Significance

Tuanku Muhamat Dawot is significant in the encyclopedia of Atjèh history as the last pretender to the sultanate — the figure under whom the shadow court of Keumala finally submitted to the Dutch in 1903 and was banished in 1907. Snouck Hurgronje’s portrait of the man — “a nonentity in a political sense … in a position neither to do the Dutch much harm nor to help his adherents” — and of his court — which “as soon as it had found a safe place of refuge in Pidie territory, far removed from the theatre of the conflict, resumed the condition it had been in before the war, the scene alone being changed” — together give the measure of the late sultanate’s abdication of responsibility. Kreemer’s account, in turn, supplies the institutional detail of Moehamat Dawöt’s earlier career as Pakèh of Pidië (1895–1896), the sarakata’s he issued to Gajö moefi’s in 1887–1888, and the family network — through his daughter Teungkoe Djam, Pö Tjoet Meurah, and the lines of Sultan Mantsoer Sjah and Sultan Mahmoed Sjah — that bound the Keumala court to the last ruling Sultan and the older royal house.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)

In the 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Van Heutsz gives a sustained account of Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed — Tëngku Muhammad Dawod, in older spelling Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed — as the dynastic instrument of the Atjehnese resistance. The war party at Kemala, under the regency of his pupilmeester Toeankoe Haschim, recognised him from 1883 as the lawful successor to the late Sultan Machmoed Sjah (d. 1874) and installed him as sultan of the rijk at the Indrapoeri mosque — the emmedji Indrapoeri — in defiance of the Dutch Civiel Gouverneur regime of 1881–1883. He is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the figure in whose name Toeankoe Haschim dispatched orders from Kemala “als komende van het eenig wettige gezag, van den sultan” (as coming from the only lawful authority, from the sultan) — and the candidate whose possible restoration Gouverneur Laging Tobias sought, in the failed overtures of June and October 1883, to convert into a Dutch-managed settlement.

Recognition as lawful successor to Sultan Machmoed Sjah

Sultan Machmoed Sjah had died in 1874 — the year after the Dutch conquest of the kraton — leaving the sultanate without an installed successor. The Dutch, in the years 1874–1881 under Generaal van der Heijden’s governorship, had treated the Atjehnese sultanate as effectively defunct; the Van der Heijden dagorder of 5 September 1879 declaring geheel Groot-Atjeh ten onder gebragt had seated the Dutch administration, volgens de Atjehsche begrippen, door het recht van verovering, op den troon van den Sultan (according to Atjehnese notions, by the right of conquest, on the throne of the Sultan). The dismissal of Van der Heijden in early 1881 and the Civiel Gouverneur regime of 1881–1883 that followed opened, for the war party at Kemala, the political space within which an Atjehnese succession could be reconstituted. Van Heutsz records the recognition:

“in schijn zijn pupil, den jeugdigen Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed, op den voorgrond plaatsende, dien hij met behulp van andere voorname hoofden al vroeger als de wettige opvolger van den in 1874 overleden sultan Machmoed Sjah had weten te doen erkennen”. — in appearance placing his pupil, the youthful Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed, in the foreground, whom, with the help of other prominent chiefs, he had already early managed to have recognised as the lawful successor of the sultan Machmoed Sjah, who died in 1874.

The recognition was the work of Toeankoe Haschim — the zeer krachtige persoonlijkheid (very forceful personality) at the head of the tegenpartij (opposing party) at Kemala — who, met behulp van andere voorname hoofden (with the help of other prominent chiefs), had secured his pupil’s recognition as the lawful successor al vroeger (already early), i.e., during the years of Dutch lijdelijkheid (passivity). Mohamad Daoed was jeugdig (youthful) — a minor whose authority was, in substance, his regent’s; the recognition was a dynastic act performed by the war party in the name of the pupil, with the substance of authority reserved to the regent.

Laging Tobias’s June 1883 letter urging submission

The first Dutch attempt to engage the sultan-candidate was Gouverneur Laging Tobias’s letter of the beginning of June 1883, addressed to Mohamad Daoed and urging him to abandon the war and submit. Van Heutsz records the letter and its diplomatic reticence — Laging Tobias, though his purpose was the herstel van het sultanaat (restoration of the sultanate), did not breathe a word of that purpose in the letter itself:

“hoewel aan Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed, tot wien reeds in ‘t begin van Juni door den Gouverneur, op een tijdstip, dat daartoe bijzonder geschikt scheen, per brief de aanmaning gericht werd om van verdere strijd aftezien en zich te onderwerpen, sprak ZHEdG. daarin met geen enkel woord over mogelijk herstel van sultanaat hoewel dit zijne bedoeling was en in dezen geest ook aan de Regeering geschreven werd”. — although to Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed, to whom already at the beginning of June the Governor, by letter, addressed the admonition — at a moment that seemed particularly suitable for it — to refrain from further strife and to submit, His Excellency said not a single word in it about possible restoration of the sultanate, although that was his intention, and in this sense he also wrote to the Government.

The letter was Laging Tobias’s first move in the derden weg (third way) he had chosen: not concentration, not renewed aggression, but the attempt to draw the sultan to the Dutch side and so deny the onverzoenlijke hoofden (irreconcilable chiefs) their vereënigingspunt (rallying point). The reticence on the herstel van het sultanaat was a diplomatic precaution; the bedoeling (intention) was restoration, and was communicated as such to the Regeering.

Laging Tobias’s October 1883 letter to Tekoe Nanta of the VI Moekims

The second Dutch move was the letter Laging Tobias addressed, in the first half of October 1883, to the old Tekoe Nanta of the VI Moekims (also called Tekoe Lampadang) — the letter in which the Governor doorschemerde (let it be hinted) that, in case of submission by the chiefs of the war party, een herstel van het sultanaat met Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed als sultan wel mogelijk was — a restoration of the sultanate with Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed as sultan would be quite possible. Van Heutsz records the letter and its political effect:

“liet de Gouverneur van Atjeh daarop in een in de eerste helft van October 1883 aan den ouden Tekoe Nanta der VI Moekims (ook Tekoe Lampadang genoemd) geschreven brief doorschemeren, dat, ingeval van onderwerping van de hoofden der oorlogspartij, een herstel van het sultanaat met Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed als sultan wel mogelijk was, en dit was het eerste blijk, dat de Atjehers van onze zijde kregen omtrent de mogelijkheid van herstel van hun ouden regeeringsvorm, zij het dan ook onder Ned. souvereiniteit”. — the Governor of Atjeh then let it be hinted, in a letter written in the first half of October 1883 to the old Tekoe Nanta of the VI Moekims (also called Tekoe Lampadang), that, in case of submission of the chiefs of the war-party, a restoration of the sultanate with Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed as sultan would be quite possible; and this was the first indication that the Atjehnese received from our side concerning the possibility of restoration of their ancient form of government, albeit under Dutch sovereignty.

The October 1883 letter was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the eerste blijk — the first indication — the Atjehnese had received from the Dutch side that a restoration of their ancient form of government was conceivable, albeit under Dutch sovereignty. The hint came to nothing: the Indische Regeering, after the December 1883 resignation of Minister van Koloniën van Bloemen Waanders — who had himself raised the herstel idea in his August 1883 letter to G.-G. ’s Jacob — gave the Governor of Atjeh to understand that van een herstel van het sultanaat niets weten wilde (wished to know nothing of a restoration of the sultanate).

Majority declaration and installation at the Indrapoeri mosque

The Dutch withdrawal from the herstel policy opened the way for the war party’s own installation. Van Heutsz records the meerderjarigheidverklaring (declaration of majority), the uitroeping en huldiging (proclamation and homage), and the establishment of the sultan’s household at Kemala:

“in weerwil, dat het voornaamste hoofd van de tegenpartij Toeankoe Haschim door de [meerderjarigheidverklaring] van Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed en diens uitroeping en huldiging in den [emmedji] Indrapoeri tot sultan van het rijk, gevolgd door de inrichting van des sultans huis te Kemala … voortdurend meer eenheid en samenhang in het Inlandsche bestuur des lands zocht te brengen”. — in spite of the fact that the principal head of the opposing party, Toeankoe Haschim, by the [declaration of majority] of Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed and his proclamation and homage in the [great mosque] Indrapoeri as sultan of the realm, followed by the establishment of the sultan’s household at Kemala … sought continually to bring more unity and coherence into the native administration of the land.

The installation had three components. The first was the meerderjarigheidverklaring — the declaration that the youthful pupil had attained his majority and could exercise sultanate authority in his own name. The second was the uitroeping en huldiging in den emmedji Indrapoeri — the proclamation and homage in the great mosque of Indrapuri, the centuries-old installation site of the sultans of Atjeh. The third was the inrichting van des sultans huis te Kemala — the establishment of the sultan’s household at Kemala, the inland seat of the resistance, voor zoover dat mogelijk was naar de aloude gebruiken (as far as that was possible according to the ancient customs). The combined effect was the constitutional settlement the Dutch Civiel Gouverneur regime of 1881–1883 had been unable to prevent: a sultan recognised by the war party, installed in the ancient mosque, and seated at Kemala — the political and dynastic form of the Atjehnese resistance that would persist, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, until the campaigns he himself would lead against Kemala after 1898.

Significance (per Van Heutsz)

Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed’s significance in Van Heutsz’s narrative is that of the sultan-candidate whom the war party at Kemala recognised, from 1883, as the lawful successor to Sultan Machmoed Sjah (d. 1874) — the dynastic instrument by which Toeankoe Haschim reconstituted the Atjehnese sultanate the Dutch conquest of 1873–1874 had been thought to have extinguished; the addressee of Gouverneur Laging Tobias’s June 1883 letter urging submission — the first Dutch overture to the sultan-candidate — and the indirect subject of Laging Tobias’s October 1883 letter to Tekoe Nanta of the VI Moekims doorschemerende that, in case of submission, een herstel van het sultanaat met Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed als sultan wel mogelijk was; and the figure installed as sultan of the rijk at the Indrapoeri mosque — the emmedji Indrapoeri — by the meerderjarigheidverklaring, uitroeping en huldiging engineered by his regent Toeankoe Haschim, with the sultan’s household established at Kemala voor zoover dat mogelijk was naar de aloude gebruiken. The installation was the constitutional settlement that closed the Civiel Gouverneur regime of 1881–1883 and gave the Atjehnese resistance, in Van Heutsz’s reading, “voortdurend meer eenheid en samenhang in het Inlandsche bestuur des lands” (continually more unity and coherence in the native administration of the land). The sultan-candidate would survive the Van Teijn governorship of 1886–1891 — Van Teijn’s Algemeen voorstel held that the sluiting must be sustained “totdat de partij van verzet te Kemala met Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed het hoofd in den schoot zouden hebben gelegd” (until the party of resistance at Kemala, with Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed, should have laid their heads in their laps, i.e., submitted) — and would be finally dislodged only by the campaigns Van Heutsz himself would lead after 1898.

Sources

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.

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.

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 26, 31, 40. OCR-filename: `20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt`.

Sultan Alaedin Muhamad Daud Shah Juhan — pronounced in Achehnese Muhamat Dawot Shah Juhan, and commonly called Tuanku Muhamat Dawot — was the last pretender to the sultanate of Acheh. Elected Sultan in 1296 H (A.D. 1879) as a child, he was the son of Sultan Alaedin Manso Shah Juhan (reigned 1838–70); he maintained a wandering “court” first at Keumala and then in various refuges, until his submission to the Dutch Government in January 1903. For his biography and conduct during the war, see Tuanku Muhamat Dawot; this article treats of the formal style, seals, and letters patent under which he acted, as illustrated in Chapter I of Vol. I. 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. Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 29–30, 35, 58. Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897) and Een strijd in Atjeh (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering. ATJEH ‘96, door A. Kruisheer, Kapitein der Infanterie O.I.L., met 2 kaarten en 4 portretten (Weltevreden: N.V. Boekhandel Visser & Co, 1913). Instituut Kern, Leiden. OCR-filename: 20260715_163243_DLP-89-Atjeh_96_Met_2_kaarten_en4_DOORA_KRUISHEER_Kapiteinder_Infanterie_nemoretriever-ocr-v1_OCR.txt, pp. 219, 297, 308, 318. De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter IX (the proclamation), Chapter X (the 1888 visit and the Dutch pursuit), Chapter XII (the 1894 flight and the 1896 counter-offensive). OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 49–50, 56, 68, 74. De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, p. 108. Toewankoe Daoed (also written Tuanku Dawot, Toewankoe Daoed) was the young pretender to the sultanate of Atjeh destined for the sultan’s rank in 1874, after the death of Sultan Aladin Mahmood Shah on 26 January 26 January 1874, and kept under the guardianship of Toewankoe Haschim at Keumala (or Kemala), in the interior south of Pedir. After the Selimoen expedition of August 1879 he and his guardian fled with the other irreducible hostile chiefs beyond the reach of the Dutch troops. H. T. Damsté, “Drie Atjeh-Mannen,” Kolonial Tijdschrift, No. 4, 26e Jaargang (1937), p. 364.

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