Photo: Het Leven
In 1927 the Langkat Sultanate held a big celebration to inaugurate Sultan Mahmud Abdul Aziz Rahmad Shah as its new ruler. The Langkat Sultanate was one of the Malay political powers in Sumatra and was among the prosperous.
The prosperity of the Langkat Sultanate comes from oil wells in the Pangkalan Brandan area and tobacco and oil palm plantations. The abundance of natural wealth made the small sultanate prosper. Even in his inauguration, Sultan Mahmud Abdul Aziz Rahmad Shah used a limited-production Rolls Royce when he welcomed the arrival of the Governor of the East Coast of Sumatra.
Photo: Het Leven
Various royalties and taxes on oil and plantation companies operating in the Langkat Sultanate made the sultanate very prosperous. Various buildings such as palaces and magnificent mosques were built by the sultan and can still be used today.
However, the history of the Langkat Sultanate ended tragically when the East Sumatran Social Revolution erupted which wiped out the entire Malay sultanate in Sumatra.
After the proclamation of Indonesian independence in 1945, the Sultanate of Langkat, which was initially very friendly with the Dutch, decided to join the Republic of Indonesia. However, the socialist group did not accept this and considered the sultanate as a feudal power that helped perpetuate Dutch colonialism. Finally, in 1946 there was a revolution driven by socialist groups that massacred the entire royal family of the various Malay sultanates in Sumatra.
The family of Sultan Mahmud Abdul Aziz Rahmad Shah was among those killed in this incident, even his two daughters were raped by the attackers. The Sultan himself was not killed, but was banished to a faraway place. The rich Langkat Sultanate ended tragically.