Article

Ahmad Shah Ibn Iskander and the late 17th century ‘holy war’ in Indonesia

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Ahmad Shah Ibn Iskander and the late 17th century ‘holy war’ in Indonesia

J. Kathirithamby-Wells published this preliminary study in 1970 in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 43, No. 1), examining the late 17th century anti-kafir movement in the Indonesian Archipelago through the figure of Ahmad Shah ibn Iskandar, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Raja Sakti. The article argues that Dutch colonial sources, preoccupied with commerce and political control, misread the religious and cultural dimensions of indigenous resistance, reducing a complex movement to the activities of a “troublesome pirate.”

Summary

The article situates the anti-kafir movement within the broader context of Dutch consolidation after the capture of Malacca in 1641. As the VOC secured treaties with West Sumatra (1663), Macassar (1667), Mataram (1677) and Bantam (1684), indigenous grievances over unfair economic policies found no direct political outlet and instead channeled into Islamic unity generated through anti-kafir propaganda from the old Muslim centres of Bantam, Giri and Hitu. Kathirithamby-Wells traces the religious infrastructure that made this possible: the Kadiya and Khalwatiya Sufi orders, the influence of Hamza al-Fansuri and Abdurra’uf of Sinkel on Javanese Islam, and the legitimisation of rulers through Meccan investiture. The movement was not monolithic but a patchwork of local rebellions—Trunajaya’s revolt in Java (1674–1680), the Macassarese adventurism following the fall of their sultanate in 1669, the west Sumatran uprisings, and the Ambonese “tasbih” movement—that briefly cohered around a single charismatic figure.

Ahmad Shah ibn Iskandar, who appeared at Billiton in 1685, claimed descent from Iskandar Dzu’l Karnain (Alexander the Great) and the rulership of Minangkabau. His credentials drew on the common Malay-Javanese legendary heritage in which royal houses traced lineage to Alexander, one of the 99 children of Nabi Adam. This shared mythological substrate gave his claims a wide and immediate appeal that transcended regional and ethnic boundaries. The article draws heavily on Dutch VOC records (Daghregister, De Jonge’s Opkomst) and English East India Company Sumatra Factory Records to reconstruct his movements from Billiton through the Lampungs, west Sumatra, Bengkulen, Manjuta and finally Jambi, where he disappeared from the record in January 1695.

A central argument is that Ahmad Shah’s personal sincerity as a religious leader is questionable—his later entanglement in Sumatran civil wars and his apparent acceptance of British gifts suggest political opportunism—yet his symbolic function as a unifying figure for the anti-kafir cause was real and significant. In a political landscape where local rivalries precluded the acceptance of any single regional leader, a figure whose authority was rooted in the common Indonesian heritage of legend and religion could command a degree of cross-regional legitimacy that no conventional ruler could.

Key Findings

  • Ahmad Shah first appeared at Billiton in 1685 with 5 perahu and 200 men, and rapidly assembled a fleet of approximately 300 vessels and a force of nearly 4,000, composed mainly of Macassarese and Minangkabaus with recruits from Riau-Johore and Jambi (pp. 53–54).
  • The Dutch-Bantamese expedition of 1 June 1686 comprised 5 Dutch vessels and 8 penchalang (60 soldiers, ~400 sailors) joined by 50 Bantamese penchalang manned by nearly 1,000 Bantamese, Bugis and Balinese; the campaign failed to locate Ahmad Shah’s fleet, which had dispersed into three directions (p. 57).
  • At Bengkulen (March 1687), Ahmad Shah was permitted by the British to mint his own coinage; he was rumoured to have been bribed with 1,000 rijksdaalders for assistance against the Bantamese pepper monopoly at Silebar, though no English Company record confirms this (pp. 59–60).
  • In January 1688, Ahmad Shah launched an attack on the Bantamese at Silebar with approximately 1,000 Bugis, Macassarese and some English, killing Pangeran Bandar, 3 kiyai and 5 lesser chiefs (p. 60).
  • By early 1691, Ahmad Shah appeared in Jambi claiming a force of nearly 7,000 with about 2,000 armed men; in 1694 he returned with 400 men, and was last recorded in January 1695 at Bukit Silantuan, Sunai, in the upper Batang Hari (pp. 61–62).
  • The broader anti-kafir phase concluded with the defeat of Surapati in 1706 and the surrender of Sunan Mas Amangkurat III in 1708 (p. 63).

Conclusion

Kathirithamby-Wells concludes that while there is little to disprove the Dutch Company’s characterisation of Ahmad Shah as an impostor and political adventurer, his significance lay not in military or religious achievement but in his function as a symbol of indigenous unity. For roughly a decade, his name became a watchword that fired the imagination of disparate anti-Dutch movements across the Archipelago, demonstrating that in a fragmented political landscape, authority drawn from the shared cultural and religious heritage could achieve a cohesion that conventional political structures could not.

Context

  • The study draws primarily on Dutch VOC archival sources (Daghregister, De Jonge’s De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag in Oost-Indie) and English East India Company Sumatra Factory Records, supplemented by secondary works by Veth, MacLeod, De Graaf, Schrieke and Snouck Hurgronje.
  • Historiographically, the article represents an early post-colonial attempt to reinterpret Indonesian resistance through indigenous religious and cultural frameworks rather than the Dutch colonial lens of “unrest” and “piracy,” and it explicitly positions itself as a preliminary study inviting further research.

References