ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to present an analytical history of the Attahashi family of Turkish ancestry by illustrating its genealogy, whose members claim to be descendants of a Turkish ruler who is supposed to have arrived in Aceh in the late decades of the 16th or beginning of the 17th century. This attempt considers the connection to Sungai Iyu partly aligned with the eco-political developments in the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. According to the argumentation of the current generation of the family, some individuals in the family became local rulers in Lam Kabeu and Sungai Iyu during the last century of the Sultanate of Aceh Darussalam. The relevant data, which sheds new light upon the traces of the Turkish existence in the region, has been acquired from various authentic written documents, oral information from various individuals including family members, and observations in field trips throughout the last decade. During the research, the author has put all his efforts to classify and comparatively examine the data from the various versions of relevant manuscripts, collected from Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar, Sungai Iyu and Medan, with each other.