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Sixteenth Century Turkish Influence in Western Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

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Extract

The existence of diplomatic and military relations between Ottoman Turkey and some Muslim states of Southeast Asia has been known for centuries. The Portuguese chroniclers, notably Couto and Pinto, kept the idea alive in the West; oral traditions and a few chronicles kept it more vividly before the imagination of the Atjehnese; and in Turkey there has been a revived interest in the connection since at least 1873. An attempt therefore seems overdue to seek greater precision on these remarkable events, by considering at least the most notable of the sources from the three sides.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1969

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References

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page 397 note 6. la-lah yang meng'adakan segala isti'adat kerajaan Atjeh Daru's-Salam dan menyuroh utusan kapada Sultan Rum, ka-negeri Istanbul, kerana menegohkan ugama Islam. Maka di-kirim Sultan Rum daripada jenis utus dan pandai yang tahu menuang bedil. Maka pada zaman itu-lah di-tuang orang meriam yang besar2. Dan ia-lah yang pertama2 berbuat kota di-negeri Atjeh Daru's-Salam, dan ia-lah yang pertama2 ghazi dengan segala kafir, hingga sendiri-nya berangkat menyerang Melaka.

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page 398 note 11. Bey, Saffet, ‘Bir Osmanli Filosunun Sumatra Seferi’, Tarihi Osmani Encümeni Mecmuasi 11 (1912), pp. 681–3Google Scholar. See Appendix for this material.

page 398 note 12. Sultan Selim I (1512–20) seems to be meant here. He conquered Egypt in 1517 and received as a result the submission of the Hejaz. If so it must be the result of a confusion with Selim II (1566–78), under whom the contact did take place, and; the Yemen was reconquered (see below, pp. 16–17). A Turkish newspaper of 1873 similarly attributed it to Selim I; see Djajadiningrat, R. H., ‘Critisch Overzicht van de in Maleische Werken Vervatte Gegevens over de Geschiedenis van het Soeltanaat van Atjeh’, BKI 65 (1911), p. 146Google Scholar. Curiously, Krucq, K. C., op. cit. p. 546Google Scholar, appears to have made the same mistake.

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page 399 note 16. Ibid. pp. 62–4 and 157–69 (pp. 215–42 of MS). Also Djajadiningrat, , pp. 177–8.Google Scholar

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page 401 note 23. Infra, p. 403.

page 401 note 24. Iskandar, , loc. cit. Djajadiningrat, pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

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page 403 note 34. de Graaf, H. J., ‘De Regering van Panembahan Senapati Ingalaga’, VKI XIII (1954), pp. 33–4Google Scholar; Tiele, P. A., ‘De Europeërs in den Maleischen Archipel’, BKI 28 (1880), p. 321Google Scholar, Meilink-Roelofsz, , p. 149Google Scholar. The main source for all these references is again Couto.

page 403 note 35. At Ala'ad-din al-Kahar's death in 1571, and probably for some time previously, his son Raja Mughal was established as Atjehnese viceroy in Pariaman. Judging by 18th and 19th Century experience, Atjehnese methods of growing pepper on virgin soil began to produce diminishing returns within less than a century as a result of soil exhaustion (v. especially Gould, J.Sumatra – America's Pepperpot, 1784–1873Essex Institute, Historical Collections 122 (1956), pp. 207–39 and 297319)Google Scholar. The old centres of Pidië and Pasai, still at their peak in Tomé Pires' time, were unimportant by the end of the century. We may, therefore, suggest a shift in the centre of pepper-growing sometime in the middle decades of the sixteenth century with the rapid growth of the west coast plantations.

page 404 note 36. Bey, Saffet, ‘Bir Osmanli Filosunun Sumatra Seferi’, TOEM 10 (1912), pp. 606–9Google Scholar. See appendix to this paper for the Turkish materials.

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page 404 note 38. Ibid.loc. cit.

page 405 note 39. Von Hammer, cited in Lombard, Denys, Le Sultanat d'Atjeh au temps d'Iskandar Muda (Paris, 1967), p. 37n.Google Scholar

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page 406 note 44. Letters of Peres, L., Malacca, 11 and 2 12, 1566Google Scholar, in Wicki, J. (ed.), Documenta Indica VII (MHSI 89, Rome, 1962), pp. 33–4 and 89Google Scholar. Tiele, , pp. 425–6Google Scholar, doubts the validity of this story, but he has it only from a secondary Jesuit source.

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page 408 note 49. De Graaf, , pp. 34–5Google Scholar. Macgregor, , p. 86.Google Scholar

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page 408 note 50a. Such relationships were known only among petty pre-Muslim states in adjacent areas, particularly in 16th Century South Celebes. See Resink, G. J., Indonesia's History Between the Myths (The Hague, 1967), p. 201.Google Scholar

page 409 note 51. A clear example of this rivalry appears from the Turkish merchant the Dutch encountered in Bantam in 1596, who was unable to return through Atjeh because the Sultan was seizing all traders who came from Bantam. van Leur, J. C., Indonesian Trade and Society (The Hague, 1955), pp. 34.Google Scholar

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page 414 note 3. Tuanku Daud, who resigned the Sultanate in submitting to the Dutch in 1903, and was exiled from Atjeh three years later.

page 414 note 4. Abdur'rauf of Singkil, the national saint of Atjeh. He is known as Teungku Sheikh Kuala because his keramat, or tomb, is at the mouth of the Atjeh river. This linking of his name with the Turkish expedition seems to be gratuitous. Rinkes, D. A., Abdoerraoef van Singkel. Bijdrage tot de kennis van de mystiek op Java en Sumtra (Friesland, 1909).Google Scholar

page 414 note 5. Osmanli Tarihi II (Ankara, 1949), pp. 388–9.Google Scholar

page 414 note 6. Danismend, I. H., Osman'li Tarihi Kronolojisi II (Instanbul, 1948), pp. 380–1.Google Scholar