Iskandar Thani Alauddin Mughayat Syah (1610 – 15 February 1641) was the thirteenth sultan of Aceh, following the powerful

Iskandar Muda Iskandar Muda (1583? – 27 December 1636Yusra Habib Abdul Gani, accessed on 4 January 2007) was the twelfth Sulṭān of Acèh Darussalam, under whom the sultanate achieved its greatest territorial extent, holding sway as the strongest po ...

. Iskandar Thani was the son of the 11th sultan of

Pahang Pahang (; Jawi: , Pahang Hulu Malay: ''Paha'', Pahang Hilir Malay: ''Pahaeng'', Ulu Tembeling Malay: ''Pahaq)'' officially Pahang Darul Makmur with the Arabic honorific ''Darul Makmur'' (Jawi: , "The Abode of Tranquility") is a sultanate and ...

Ahmad Shah II Qutb-ud-Din Ahmad Shah II, born Jalal Khan, was a ruler of the Muzaffarid dynasty, who reigned over the Gujarat Sultanate from 1451 to 1458. He defeated invading Malwa forces at the battle of Kapadvanj. He tried to capture Nagor and came in co ...

, who was brought to Aceh in the conquest of Pahang in 1617 by Iskandar Muda. He married the sultan's daughter, the later Sulṭāna

Taj ul-Alam Sulṭāna Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah (1612 – 23 October 1675; born Putri Sri Alam) was the fourteenth ruler of Aceh. She was the daughter of the sultan Iskandar Muda and the wife of his successor, Iskandar Thani. She became sulṭāna u ...

, and succeeded Iskandar Muda as sultan when he died in 1636. Reigning in the wake of the rout of the Acehnese fleet in 1629, Iskandar Thani was not able to continue his predecessor's military successes. He was a strong ruler, able to suppress the ''orang kaya'' (Acehnese nobility) and working to centralize royal power as Iskandar Muda had done. His rule was too short to make major accomplishments, however, and after his death the elite re-asserted their influence, and placed his widow,

, on the throne, the first of several weak sultans. Like Iskandar Muda's, the court of Iskandar Thani was known as a center of Islamic learning. He was the patron of Nuruddin ar-Raniri, an Islamic scholar from

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

who arrived in Aceh in 1637. Ar-Raniri denounced the work of earlier scholars from Iskandar Muda's court, and ordered their books to be burned while establishing literary and religious standards.Ricklefs, 51

Notes

References

* J.M. Barwise and N.J. White. ''A Traveller’s History of Southeast Asia''. New York: Interlink Books, 2002. * M.C. Ricklefs. ''A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1300'', 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Sultans of Aceh 1610 births 1641 deaths 17th-century Indonesian people {{Indonesia-bio-stub