Article

On the alleged death of Sultan Al’a’ud-din of Johore at Acheh, in 1613

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On the alleged death of Sultan Al’a’ud-din of Johore at Acheh, in 1613

C.A. Gibson-Hill’s 1956 article in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 29, Pt. 1) dismantles the long-standing claim that Sultan Ala’u’d-din Ri’ayat Shah of Johore died at Acheh in June 1613. Drawing on English, Dutch, and Malay sources, Gibson-Hill demonstrates that the prince captured at Batu Sawar that year was Ala’u’d-din’s half-brother Raja Bongsu, and that the “death at Acheh” tradition almost certainly conflates this sultan with his predecessor of the same name (r. 1529–c.1564), who was indeed taken prisoner and died in Acheh.

Summary

The article addresses a specific historiographical error that had been perpetuated by Winstedt and others: the identification of the Johore prince captured during the Achenese sack of Batu Sawar in June 1613 as Sultan Ala’u’d-din himself. Gibson-Hill reconstructs the sequence of events from the diaries of Ralph Croft (purser of the English ship Dragon), the journal of Pieter Floris (on the Dutch Globe), and Thomas Best’s correspondence, all of which make clear that it was the “young king” Raja Bongsu who was taken prisoner, along with the kings of Siak and Paun, and approximately twenty Dutch merchants and sailors. Croft’s entry of 5 July 1613 is particularly telling: the Achenese general was publicly humiliated by Iskandar Muda for failing to capture the “old King of Joar, who was an old decreped man and had assigned his kingdom to his son” (p. 127).

Gibson-Hill then traces Ala’u’d-din’s movements after the fall of Batu Sawar. He fled to Bintan and remained a fugitive on the water for at least two more years. In August 1615 he was at Malacca, where he signed a treaty with the Portuguese; in November of the same year he was aboard the English ship Solomon in the Singapore Strait, described by the factors as “flying from the King of Achin” and living “on the water like a fugitive” (pp. 133, 141). His actual death is undated, falling somewhere between 1616 and early 1623, when his son Raja Bujang was proclaimed sultan following the death of Raja Bongsu on Great Tambelan in March 1623.

The crux of Gibson-Hill’s argument is etymological and textual. The preface to the Shellabear recension of the Malay Annals states that the sultan “mangkat di-Acheh” (died at Acheh), but this phrase, when cross-referenced with the Perak silah-silah and the preface to Raffles MS No. 18, points to the earlier Sultan Ala’u’d-din (son of Sultan Mahmud, r. 1529–c.1564), who was captured in an attack on his capital and died at Acheh in 1564 according to Pinto, the Bustanu’s-Salatin, and an Achenese chronicle. The Perak silah-silah explicitly distinguishes the two: the earlier is “Marhum Sayyid Mangkat di-Acheh,” while the later is “Marhum Kampar” (p. 138). The 1637 statement by the laksamana to the Dutch envoy Cornelis van der Veer—that Ala’u’d-din was “killed in Achin for not helping the Achinese to fight the Portuguese”—is dismissed as an unverified rumour circulating in a period of intense Achenese hostility toward the Johore house (p. 138).

Key Findings

  • The Achenese occupied Batu Sawar on 6 June 1613 and returned to Acheh on 28 June; the prisoner brought was Raja Bongsu, not Ala’u’d-din, as confirmed by Croft’s diary, Floris’s journal, and Best’s letter (pp. 126–128).
  • Croft records (5 July 1613) that the Achenese general was forced by Iskandar Muda to eat a platter of excrement for failing to capture the “old King of Joar,” an “old decreped man” (p. 127).
  • Floris (8 November 1613) reports that Raja Bongsu was sent back to Johore with 30 prawes and 2,000 Achenese to rebuild the fort, married to Iskandar Muda’s sister, with the explicit instruction that the old king should be deposed (p. 128).
  • Sultan Ala’u’d-din was still alive and free in November 1615, speaking aboard the English ship Solomon in the Singapore Strait as a fugitive “on the water” (pp. 133, 141).
  • The Perak silah-silah designates the earlier Ala’u’d-din (r. 1529–c.1564) as “Marhum Sayyid Mangkat di-Acheh” but the later Ala’u’d-din as “Marhum Kampar,” providing a textual basis for the conflation (p. 138).
  • Raja Bongsu died on Great Tambelan in March 1623; his nephew Raja Bujang (aged c. 22) was then proclaimed sultan, with Bongsu’s infant son (aged 1–2) designated as heir (pp. 134–135).

Conclusion

Gibson-Hill’s definitive takeaway is that the death of Sultan Ala’u’d-din at Acheh in 1613 is a historical impossibility, and that the tradition rests on a conflation of two sultans who bore the same regnal name. While he cannot establish the precise date or place of the later Ala’u’d-din’s death (sometime between 1616 and early 1623), he demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the man captured at Batu Sawar was Raja Bongsu, and that the “mangkat di-Acheh” formula in the Malay Annals belongs to the earlier sultan of the same name.

Context

  • Primary sources drawn upon include the Hakluyt Society editions of Best (1934) and Floris (1934), Wm Foster’s Letters received by the East India Company (vols. 3–5), the Shellabear recension of the Sejarah Melayu, Raffles MS No. 18 (Winstedt’s romanisation), the Perak silah-silah (Maxwell’s translation), and Dutch archival material in Tiele, Netscher, and Colenbrander.
  • The article corrects a specific error in Winstedt’s History of Johore (1932) and History of Malaya (1935), which had conflated the 1613 attack on Batu Sawar with the 1615 attack on Malacca and accepted the “death at Acheh” tradition without critical examination.

References