Sultan Sjarifuddin Sjah (1 August 1933 – 21 May 2019) was the executive (''pelaksana'') Sultan of

Ternate Ternate (), also known as the City of Ternate (; ), is the List of regencies and cities of Indonesia, city with the largest population in the province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia. It was the ''de facto'' provi ...

North Maluku North Maluku (; ) is a province of Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the north, the Halmahera Sea to the east, the Molucca Sea to the west, and the Seram Sea to the south. It shares marit ...

, being the 49th monarch of the island. He held the ceremonial but prestigious title after the death of his younger brother Mudaffar Syah II, during the years 2016–2019.

Sultan of Ternate

Sjarifuddin was born in

, in what was then the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

in 1933, as the son of Sultan Muhammad Jabir and Hamidah Hafel. He was educated at the Delft Technical University in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, becoming a mining engineer. He later worked at PT

Aneka Tambang PT Aneka Tambang Tbk, colloquially known as Antam, is an Indonesian mining company. The company primarily produces gold and nickel, and is the largest producer of nickel in Indonesia. Until 2017, Antam was a directly state-owned company, before ...

, a state-owned mining company, from which he retired in 1988. The sultan family lost their executive functions in the years after the

Independence of Indonesia The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence (, or simply ''Proklamasi'') was read at 10:00 Japan Standard Time, Tokyo Standard Time on Friday 17 August 1945 in Jakarta. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed resistance of ...

in 1949, and the sultan title temporarily lapsed after the death of his father in 1975. However, his younger brother Mudaffar Sjah, born from a more high-ranking consort, was generally accepted as the heir; he was formally installed in 1986, though unofficially from

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

's point of view. The sultanate gained leverage after the end of

Suharto Suharto (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian Officer (armed forces), military officer and politician, and dictator, who was the second and longest serving president of Indonesia, serving from 1967 to 1998. His 32 years rule, cha ...

's New Order, with a revival of old traditions. However, after Mudaffar Sjah's death in 2015 a conflict emerged within the sultan's family as to who was the rightful successor. The late sultan had several sons with different wives, complicating the issue. Eventually Mudaffar's brother Sjarifuddin was enthroned on 4 September 2016 by the dignitaries Kimelaha Tamadi and Kimelaha Marsaoly. The ceremony took place in the Kadato Ico palace in Soa Sio, northern Ternate. It was understood to be a pragmatic agreement in order to put an end to the contest between three sons of Mudaffar. Sjarifuddin's role was that of executive sultan (pelaksana sultan) and he did not officiate over some of the ceremonies traditionally associated with Ternatan kingship. His reign was short since he died in Jakarta in 2019. He was succeeded by a son of Mudaffar Sjah, Hidayatullah Sjah who was crowned as the 49th Sultan of Ternate on 18 December 2021.

References

{{end 1933 births 2019 deaths Sultans of Ternate Delft University of Technology alumni People from Maluku Islands

Sultan of Ternate

See also

References