The Acehnese past and its present state of study R. Michael ... - kitlv

4 R. Michael Feener
Figure 2. Muslim funerary monuments at Pasai, North Aceh.
Photograph by R. Michael Feener.
derived from later Malay literary texts, including the Hikayat Raja Pasai and
the Sejarah Melayu. Among the important points advanced by Guillot and
Kalus’ work for understanding the earlier history of the region is their highlighting
of the signifi cance of latter-day descendants of the Abbassid nobility
in contests for religious and political legitimacy during the earliest period of
Pasai’s history, as well as the apparent prominence of women in positions
of authority. Both of these cases demonstrate important early precursors to
subsequent developments of the Acehnese sultanate in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
Since the rise of Pasai, and through the subsequent development of the
Sultanate of Aceh, the region has maintained a very strong sense of Muslim
identity, and many of the best-surviving sources for its history over the
centuries since Ibn Battuta’s visit chronicle developments in evolving local
interpretations of Islam and changing patterns in Aceh’s relationships with
other parts of the global umma. Upon his arrival at Pasai, Ibn Battuta was
greeted by Amir Daulasa, a Pasai court offi cial whom he had previously met
in Delhi. Later in his account, Ibn Battuta (d. 1369) also noted that some of