Alauddin Ibrahim Mansur Syah

Alauddin Ibrahim Mansur Syah is considered the most enterprising and forceful sultan to have ruled Aceh since the great days of the seventeenth century.

The nominal sultan, his nephew Alauddin Sulaiman Ali Iskandar Syah, came to age by 1854 and demanded the prerogatives due to him.

[2] When Alauddin Ibrahim Mansur Syah came to power in 1838, the Dutch had just concluded the Padri War which greatly strengthened their position in West Sumatra.

By the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 they were obliged to respect the independence of Aceh, but still encroached on the Acehnese sphere of influence on Sumatra's west coast.

Acehnese war-bands from Tapus and Singkil, presumably acting without the sultan's approval, staged a counter-attack on Barus which was beaten off.

According to Acehnese accounts he sent a fleet of 200 vessels down the east coast in 1853-54 which was successful in attaching Langkat, Serdang, Deli, Batubara and Asahan to the sultan's sphere of influence.

He entrusted a wealthy pepper trader, Muhammad Ghauth who was going to Mecca on the hajj in 1849, with letters to Louis Philippe I of France and the Ottoman sultan and caliph.

Sultan Abdül Mecid I issued two decrees (firman), declaring Turkish protection over Aceh and confirming Alauddin Ibrahim Mansur Syah as a formal vassal.

The meeting with Alauddin Ibrahim Mansur Syah went badly since the sultan felt insulted by the Dutch lack of respect for his dignity, and was on the brink of ending in bloodshed.

A Dutch expedition in 1865 brought Asahan and Serdang to submission and punished the murderers in Tamiang whose Acehnese flag was lowered.

Europeans were advised not to visit the north coast and the trade suffered, so that the British Melaka Straits press called for intervention.