Acehnese Appeals for Ottoman Protection in the Late Nineteenth Century

During the Aceh War (1873 to 1903) Aceh appealed for Ottoman support and protection against the Dutch. The main purpose of this chapter is to examine these appeals and the Ottoman authorities’ responses to them, based mainly on the Turkish archival sources. Acehnese leaders sent several letters to Sultan Abdülhamid II, asking for help against the Dutch. In 1891, Sharif ῾Ali b. Isma῾il went to Istanbul to bring Aceh under Ottoman sovereignty. The Acehnese tried to establish relations with the Ottomans through the visit of the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul to Singapore in 1890 and the Ottoman representation in Batavia. Although the Ottoman authorities showed a considerable interest in Aceh matters, this did not materialise because of the current political circumstances. Aceh's distance from Ottoman lands and the lack of sufficient information on the region, coupled with problems in communications, also caused the Ottomans to approach the problem of Aceh cautiously.

Indonesian Readings of Turkish History, 1890s to 1940s

Exploring Indonesian-language newspapers and books produced between 1892 and 1949, this chapter identifies how localised visions and impressions of the last period of the Ottoman Empire resonated with the Indies’ own socio-political realities, with a focus on pre-independence political debates (1926–50). Through an analysis of the Indies’ readers’ profane fascination with the sultan's lifestyle and the empire's military successes, and their admiration for Mustafa Kemal's reforms, which shaped Turkey as a secular, industrialised, independent and ultimately ‘modern’ nation-state, the chapter discusses how the multi-layered phenomenon of ‘modernity’ became, in the context of pre-independence Indonesia, reduced to a dichotomous choice between political Islam and secularism. Soekarno, Natsir, Soetomo and other intellectuals representative of the anti-colonial front framed the debate on progress, or kemadjoean, as much in social and economic terms as in matters Islamic.

Representation of the Turkic–Turkish Theme in Traditional Malay Literature, with Special Reference to the Works of the Fourteenth to Mid-Seventeenth Centuries

The Turkic–Turkish theme, a significant phenomenon of traditional Malay literature during its entire Islamic period (the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries), still remains a long-neglected subject in Malay studies. To start filling this gap, this chapter discusses the importance of this theme in Malay literature, offers a chronological–topical grouping of the relevant texts and presents a detailed survey of the earliest group of texts, dated from the late fourteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. This group includes learned compositions, epic narratives and tales translated from Persian and Arabic, in which either Turkic characters figure or the action takes place in Istanbul. By associating the Turkic–Turkish theme with such issues as Islam, proselytism, holy war, Caliphate, and relations between the ruler and his subjects, these early, often fictitious, pieces of literature laid a foundation for the domination of political topics in the later, more deeply indigenised, groups of texts.

The Ottoman Caliphate and Muslims of the Philippine Archipelago during the Early Modern Era

This chapter examines the Ottoman role in politics in the Philippines with especial reference to the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, when much of the Philippine Archipelago came under Spanish control. Spanish documents analysed here suggest that colonial policy-makers were profoundly concerned about potential Ottoman influence over the Muslim sultanates of the Philippines—Sulu and Maguindanao. The Spanish archival and literary sources also contain records of attempts by the Philippine sultanates to contact the Ottoman Caliph in Istanbul, not merely to counter the Spanish threat but also to intervene in internal disputes. These efforts never seem to have met with success. Eventually, instead of gaining Ottoman protection, and despite adopting Caliphal titles, at the end of the nineteenth century the Philippine sultanates were forced to accept Spanish suzerainty.

Hadhrami Mediators of Ottoman Influence in Southeast Asia

The chapter traces through trade, khuṭbah and diasporic networks the importance of Hadhramaut and the Hadhramis of Southeast Asia to Ottoman Indian Ocean interests. By virtue of their religious, commercial and scholarly status the Hadhrami sayyids influenced the emergence of anti-colonial rhetoric in the Netherlands East Indies. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the Caliph's attempts to boost his prestige within Dār al-Islām, compensating for Ottoman political attrition on the European front, merely aggravated festering Dutch suspicions of a Hadhrami-inspired anti-colonial conspiracy. Consequent Dutch discriminatory treatment of Arabs backfired, however, allowing for the ready co-option of Hadhrami agency by the new Ottoman consulate for promoting the Caliphate. Though the Caliph's agenda made little headway, given the influence of the Netherlands in European politics, the ‘Arab problem’ foregrounded new concepts of citizenship and nationality pertinent to both Hadhrami–Ottoman relations and rising nationalism in the region.

The Influence of Ottoman Qur’ans in Southeast Asia Through the Ages

This chapter discusses the influence of Ottoman Qur’ans on the Qur’an in Southeast Asia, from the manuscript era and through the period of early printing up to the present day. At various times, Ottoman influence can be detected in certain specific aspects of Southeast Asian Qur’ans, including illumination and calligraphy, and in particular in the adoption of the Ottoman ayet ber kenar model of page layout. Special attention is paid to the Qur’an lithographed in Palembang in 1848, as the earliest Qur’an printed in Southeast Asia. In recent years Ottoman influence has become much stronger, particularly since the ratification of the Indonesian Standard Qur’an in 1984, as one of the three approved versions is based on the Qur’an printed at the Matbaa-i Bahriye in Istanbul. This edition of the Qur’an has long been used in Indonesia by Qur’anic reciters, who learn the text by heart (ḥāfiẓ) in various pesantren (madrasas).

The Ottomans and Southeast Asia Prior to the Hamidian Era

In the light of new evidence on interactions between the Ottoman Empire and Southeast Asia, this chapter contests certain notions such as the excessive emphasis put on Abdülhamid II as the initiator of Ottoman involvement in the wider Islamic world; the idea that this involvement was designed by the Ottoman administration, who wanted to take advantage of the Caliphate for its political ends; and the presumption that the Hadhramis in the European colonies in Southeast Asia were agents of Ottoman ‘pan-Islamist’ policies in the region. Conversely, it is argued that the nineteenth-century Ottoman interest in Southeast Asia pre-dates the Hamidian era. It is also argued that the Ottoman involvement in the region was a result of various initiatives from the region. Finally, it seeks to re-evaluate the position of the Hadhrami sayyids in these interactions and argues that they were the agents of Southeast Asian voices in Istanbul.

From Istanbul with Love

The political and diplomatic contacts established over the course of the 1560s are one of the most important chronological and symbolic landmarks of relations between the Sultanate of Aceh and the Ottoman Empire. Recently discovered documents from several European archives have revealed new protagonists, facts, and political, diplomatic and economic articulations encompassing the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, with important ramifications for Southeast Asia. This chapter focuses, above all, on the activities of the espionage and counter-espionage networks, based in Istanbul, but scattered across various Mediterranean ports. These networks were headed by eminent figures from the Jewish and Portuguese New Christian financial and commercial circles, who were close to Süleyman I as well as his successor Selim II. The intelligence produced by these networks during the 1560s is mainly focused on the spice routes from Southeast Asia (particularly Aceh) through the Maldives to the Red Sea.

Introduction Islam, Trade and Politics Across the Indian Ocean

This chapter discusses the emergence and development of the relationship between Southeast Asia and the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, concentrating on the three principal themes that defined this relationship: Islam, trade relations and politics. While particular attention is given to the Ottoman relationship with Aceh, their involvement with other Muslim polities on the Malay peninsula and archipelagic Southeast Asia is also considered. An overview is given of the state of the art of historiography in the field, as well as its broader relevance to the study of the Indian Ocean world and to the history of colonialism. The chapter also reflects on the Southeast Asian idealisation of Rum, as the Ottoman lands were known.

‘We Hope to Raise the Bendera Stambul’

In the decades between the 1870s and the 1920s, groups of Malay Muslims circulated symbols of the Ottoman Caliphate in gestures of defiance against British colonial intervention on the Malay peninsula. This was the period of ‘forward movement’, in which Britain progressively colonised successive Malay States, and it roughly coincided with the European confrontations which produced the First World War, Ottoman collapse, and the abolition of the Caliphate. At peninsular and global scales, these developments advanced the geo-body as the only legitimate means by which to organise territory. As a result, the Muslim world located around the Indian Ocean was decisively divided into a series of discrete, contiguous states, fragmenting the ummah, its latent political community. Malayan invocations of the Caliphate were local responses to this global reorganisation, of which peninsular colonisation formed an important and disruptive part.