Aceh has become best known in our times for its twin disasters—the worst earthquake and tsunami of modern times in December 2004, and a long-running separatist conflict that rent Indonesia for most of its independent history. Although this book emerged from the process of recovery from those traumas, it turns the spotlight on a more positive and neglected claim Aceh has on our attention, as the Southeast Asian maritime state that most successfully and creatively maintained its independent place in the world until 1874. Like Burma, Siam and Vietnam, all better protected by geography, Aceh has its own story to tell of a unique culture struggling for survival through the European colonial era.

Unfortunately the sources for this story are scattered, since Aceh’s own records have not well survived the ravages of climate, civil war and eventual foreign conquest. To recover its cosmopolitan history an unparalleled range of sources and skills had to be brought together. Aceh’s central role in the creation of Malay literature out of Arabic, Persian, Indian and Indonesian elements had to be explored with reference to texts surviving in a dozen world libraries (Teuku Iskandar, Amirul Hadi). The rich archeological record, neglected through the long years of conflict, had again to be brought into play (Daniel Perret), and the extensive relations of the Aceh sultanate with the Ottoman Empire (Ismail Göksoy and Ismail Kadı, Andrew Peacock & Annabel Gallop), Portugal (Jorge Alves), England (Annabel Gallop), and the Netherlands (Sher Banu and Jean Taylor) had to be explored, chiefly in European archives by experts in these respective fields. The result of this combined work in this volume is the most comprehensive picture so far of sources for the history of Aceh.

在我们这个时代，亚齐最出名的是它的双重灾难--2004年12月发生的现代最严重的地震和海啸，以及在印度尼西亚大部分独立历史中长期存在的分裂主义冲突。虽然这本书是在从这些创伤中恢复的过程中产生的，但它把焦点放在亚齐更积极和被忽视的要求上，作为东南亚的海洋国家，亚齐在1874年之前最成功和创造性地保持其在世界上的独立地位。就像缅甸、暹罗和越南一样，亚齐也有自己的故事，一个独特的文化在欧洲殖民时代为生存而挣扎。

不幸的是，这个故事的来源很分散，因为亚齐自己的记录没有很好地经历气候、内战和最终的外国征服的蹂躏。为了恢复其世界性的历史，必须汇集一系列无与伦比的资料和技能。亚齐在从阿拉伯、波斯、印度和印尼元素中创造马来文学方面的核心作用，必须参照存于十几个世界图书馆的文本（Teuku Iskandar, Amirul Hadi）进行探讨。在漫长的冲突岁月中被忽视的丰富的考古记录必须再次发挥作用（Daniel Perret），亚齐苏丹国与奥斯曼帝国（Ismail Göksoy和Ismail Kadı，Andrew Peacock和Annabel Gallop）、葡萄牙（Jorge Alves）、英国（Annabel Gallop）和荷兰（Sher Banu和Jean Taylor）的广泛关系必须被探索，主要是由这些领域的专家在欧洲档案馆探索。这一卷的综合工作成果是迄今为止对亚齐历史资料的最全面描述。