Alauddin Ri'ayat Syah al-Qahhar

Alauddin Ri'ayat Syah al-Qahhar (died 28 September 1571) was the third sultan of Aceh, reigning from 1537 or 1539 until his death. The younger son of the founder Ali Mughayat Syah, he is considered one of the strongest rulers in the sultanate's history: he organised the Acehnese state, warred on the Portuguese and their Malay allies for three decades, and opened the famous Acehnese embassy to the Ottoman Empire. ¹

Alauddin was the second son of Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah. After Ali's death in 1530 his eldest son Salahuddin ruled ineffectively while the queen mother Sitt Hur governed through a regent, Raja Bungsu; Alauddin, who held Samudra Pasai, staged a coup in about 1537 or 1539, killed Raja Bungsu, and imprisoned Salahuddin and the queen mother, taking the throne with the regnal title Sultan Alauddin Ri'ayat Syah al-Kahar. Under Acehnese tradition he is remembered as a great organiser of the state, credited with dividing society into the administrative lineage groups called kaum or sukeë. ^{1 2}

His campaigns began in 1539 against the Batak country south of Aceh — Fernão Mendes Pinto relates that the sultan first demanded the Batak king accept Islam and attacked when he refused — and against Aru, whose ruler he killed before Johor's army forced his withdrawal. The principal enemy was Portuguese Melaka. In 1547 Alauddin personally took part in a night attack on Melaka that was defeated at the Perlis River. In 1564 he suddenly turned a fleet ostensibly bound for Patani against Johor, sacked it, and carried its sultan to Aceh; Aru then fell to Aceh and was entrusted to his son Abdullah. In January 1568 he led 15,000 men and 400 Ottoman elite soldiers with 200 bronze cannon against Malacca, losing his eldest son Abdullah in the failed assault, and Acehnese fleets fought the Portuguese again in 1570 with Turkish arms. ^{1 3}

To strengthen his hand against the Portuguese, whose ships made the Indian Ocean sea route dangerous for Muslim shipping, Alauddin dispatched envoys to the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent about 1561–1562. Turkish gunners reached Aceh by 1564; Suleiman's successor Selim II prepared a fleet of fifteen galleys and two barques which had to be diverted to Yemen, though two vessels with munitions and military experts reached Aceh and their crews stayed in Alauddin's service, fighting in the 1568 campaign. ^{1 2}

Sultan Alauddin died at Banda Aceh on 28 September 1571, as the inscription on his grave attests; the Indonesian article gives the inscription's Hijri date as 8 Jumada al-awwal 979 AH. (The lead paragraphs of the English and Arabic articles print 29 September; the body text, the infoboxes, the Indonesian article and Wikidata all give the inscription-supported 28th.) He was succeeded by his son Sultan Ali Ri'ayat Syah I. Although he never took Melaka, his reign witnessed the beginning of the high tide of Aceh's power. ^{1 3 4}

No source read for this record names a school for him. The English and Indonesian infoboxes give his religion as Islam, and his diplomacy and wars were framed in explicitly Muslim terms — the demand that the Batak king convert, and the appeal to Istanbul for solidarity against the infidel Portuguese on behalf of endangered Muslim shipping and pilgrimage routes. ^{1 3}