The sultanate of Aceh Darussalam as a constructive power

Abstract

Aceh history has long been mainly taken into consideration in the context of Southeast Asian or Malay archipelago history. However, there is not much attention given to the fact that the Sultanate of Aceh played a very salient role globally in Islamic world. This paper argues a hypothesis that the Sultanate of Aceh had commenced a watershed apparently in its relation with the centre of Islamic world to construct a new political concept of Pan-Islamism in the very early decades of the 16th century and as its succession in the 19th century. Due to this, Aceh history should be perused concerning the centre-periphery contextual situation of the Islamic world. The significance of the moulding power of the center is admittedly unquestinable. Nevertheless, it is also a fact that the center cannot exist without its periphery. The mutual relationship between the center and its periphery shares substantive responsibility in a manner of being constructive. It means the fact that the latter has some power to mould as well as give a direction to the former. Concerning the inter-relational approach between the centre and its periphery of Islamic world, the relation of the Sultanate of Aceh with the Ottoman State became one of the hallmarks of the development of the idea of Pan-Islamism. The Sultanate aimed to have a relation in almost equal terms so as to exclude the Portuguese ultimately from Southeast Asia in the 16th century, and to protect sovereignty in its homeland from the invasion of the Dutch colonialism in the 19th century. This state policy should be regarded as a triggering intervention for the creation of a new concept in the Islamic history such as Pan-Islamism. Thus this article reexamines the ways in which Acehnese sultans’ promoting Pan-Islamist ideology in relation with the Ottoman State on the basis of common sources and particularly the contemporary news and commentaries in the journal of Basiret which was published for about 60 news commencing before the appalling Dutch war until June 1874 in Constantinople.