Badr al-'Alam1699-1702Perkasa 'Alam Sharif Lamtuy1702-1703Badr al-Munir, Jamal al-'Alam1703-1726Amin ad-Din Shah, Jawhar al-'Alam1726Shams al-'Alam, Wandi Tebing1726-1727Ah.mad Shah, Maharaja Lela Melayu, 'Ala' ad-Din1727-1735Jahan Shah, Potjut Auk, 'Ala' ad-Din1735-1760Mah.mud Shah, Tuanku Raja1760-1781Muh.ammad Shah, Taunku Muh.ammad, 'Ala' ad-Din1781-1795Jawhar al-'Alam Shah, 'Ala' ad-Din1795-1824Muh.ammad Shah1824-1836Mans.ur Shah1836-1870Mah.mud Shah1870-1874capital at Kutaraja captured by Dutch, 1874Muhammad Dawud Shah, 'Ala' ad-Din1874-1903Dutch conquest of Acheh, 1903a linga franca, like Swahili in East Africa and Hindi-Urdu in India. Like those languages, Malay has a strong element of Arabic in it, though this is often obscured by the pronunciation. Thus, a basic greeting in Malay is Apa kabar? This simply means "What's new?" Apa is a Malay word, but kabar is from Arabic khabar, "news, information, report." Malay is now the national language of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia), Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia), and Singapore (Bahasa Melayu). The British and the Dutch introduced systems of Romanization -- e.g. "u" in Malaya was "oe" in Indonesia -- which now have been reconciled to a universal standard, with the Dutch idiosyncrasies eliminated. The use of the Arabic alphabet had been dying out, but not entirely.As initially in Persian, it was necessary to introduce some extra letters into the alphabet to write all the sounds of Malay. These would be, most importantly, letters for the velar nasal "ng" and the palatal nasal "ny" (or "n"). A small problem arose with writing three dots over the "chair" for an "n" with "ny." In the final or independent position, the letter would be distinctive. Written initially or medially, however, the letter would look like the Arabic "th." Thus, in the initial or medial positions, the three dots for "ny" are written under rather than over the "chair." This, however, would then look like the Persian "p." Malay also needed a "p," so the "chair" of Arabic "f" was used, with three dots, for the "p." Otherwise, we get the variation that "g," borrowed from Persian, might be written with a dot rather than an extra line; and Arabic "w," pronounced "v" in Persian, could be left alone to mean "w" in Malay or written with a dot to mean "v." Otherwise, "ch" was also borrowed from Persian.The way things are going in Islam, it may well be that the use of the Arabic alphabet will increase; but little of it had been left in public life.Acheh at the northern end of Sumatra, just across the Straits from Malacca, was a larger and more durable realm. We see less in the way of Sanskrit names and titles, though there are some local names and references, as with Ah.mad Shah (1727-1735), who is called Maharaja Lela Melayu -- i.e. "the Malay." We also see something very unusual in Islam, a number of female rulers.In 1563 Sult.an Ri'ayat Shah of Acheh wrote to the Ottoman Sult.an, in this case no less than Suleiman the Magnificent, requesting help against the Portuguese. This episode reveals the extent of the Oecumene of Islam, and the recognition of the common enemy. Turkey at the height of its power, and willing to help, nevertheless had some difficulty projecting that power as