The Sultanate of Aceh

The Sultanate of Aceh, at the northern tip of the great island of Sumatra, was one of the most powerful Muslim states of the Malay world and, in the early seventeenth century under Sultan Iskandar Muda, reached the height of its wealth and reach. Aceh grew rich above all on the pepper trade: its harbour drew Arab, Indian, Chinese and, later, European ships to load the black pepper of Sumatra, and its position at the northern entrance of the Strait of Malacca gave it command of one of the great sea-roads of the world, between the Indian Ocean, the spice islands and China. It was also a renowned centre of Islamic learning and a stronghold of the faith in Southeast Asia: home to celebrated scholars and Sufi teachers who wrote in Malay and Arabic, and the chief point from which pilgrims of the archipelago set out for the Hajj, so that it came to be called the veranda of Makkah (Serambi Mekkah). Aceh led the Muslim resistance to the Portuguese, who had seized Malacca, contesting control of the strait and the trade. This scene depicts the port-city around its height: the harbour where ships of many nations ride at anchor, the wharves and warehouses where pepper is weighed and loaded, and the great tiered-roof congregational mosque above the town, a rich and learned Muslim sultanate of the monsoon seas at the gateway of the Malay world. In keeping with the project's ethics any figures are anonymous and at a distance.