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Sixteenth Century Turkish Influence in Western Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Anthony Reid
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 1969 , pp. 395 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1969

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References

page 395 note 1. Encyclopedia of Islam III, 1174–5.Google Scholar

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page 395 note 3. Ibid. pp. 338–41.

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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.

page 399 note 13. Rashid (Turkish Foreign Minister) to Musurus (Ambassador to Britain and the Netherlands) 11 Aug. 1873, Woltring, (ed.), Bescheiden Betreffende de Buitenlandse Politiek van Nederland, 2de Periode (The Hague, 1962), I, 612.Google Scholar

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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 402 note 30. Dames, M. Longworth, ‘The Portuguese and Turks in the Indian Ocean in the Sixteenth Century’, JRAS 1921.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, 1784–1873’ Essex Institute, Historical Collections 122 (1956), pp. 207–39 and 297–319)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.

page 404 note 37. Saffet, , op. cit. 11 (1912), p. 680.Google Scholar

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page 405 note 43. As assumed by Tiele, , op. cit. p. 425Google Scholar; De Graaf, , p. 68Google Scholar; Djajadiningrat, , p. 155Google Scholar; Meilink-Roelofsz, , p. 149Google Scholar, and ProfessorBoxer, , infra, p. 420Google Scholar. My doubt is strengthened by Couto's introduction to his account of Atjehnese plans, which states that after mastering Pedir, Pasai and Aru, only Malacca stood in his way to becoming emperor of the Malays. The conquest of Aru and Johor are usually dated in 1564.

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.

page 406 note 45. Wicki, , p. 88.Google Scholar

page 406 note 46. Letter of da Costa, C., Malacca, 6 12 1868Google Scholar, Wicki, , op. cit. pp. 529–30Google Scholar. Also ibid. pp. 514–5, and 574–5.

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page 407 note 48. The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies (Hakluyt, London, 1885) I, p. 110Google Scholar. Linschoten's wonder at the size of this cannon, “hardly to be found in all Christendom”, is echoed in numerous contemporary European descriptions of Turkish artillery. For the anachronistic Turkish preoccupation with size rather than efficiency in their cannons, see Cipolla, C. M., Guns and ships in the Early Phase of European Expansion (London, 1965) pp. 93–9.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. 3–4.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

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