With the 1607 accession of Perkasa Alam. who is best known by the name of Sultan Iskandar Muda, Aceh entered its Golden Age Even today Iskandar Muda the Young Alexander) lives on in the minds of the Acehnese people as a brilliant person and their greatest hero, and is posthumously referred Makota Alam the former Crown of the World). Although not everything attributed to him can be confirmed he did play a leading role in establishing Aceh's name in the East and the West during a reign that lasted almost thirty years (Lombard 1967: 165) At the end of the nineteenth century C. Snouck Hurgronje wrote a monumental two-volume work about Aceh called The Achenese, still the most thorough study of the sultanate. Snouck Hurgronje's function as an advisor to the Dutch colonial government was probably the reason why he revealed a certain animosity toward the Acehnese people in his work. He wrote at a time when Aceh was in decline, and creates the impression that it was always a backward and miserable place. Begin ning his discussion with the late eighteenth century, when much of Aceh's splendor had passed, he suggests that the Golden Age in the seventeenth century is nothing but a legend in the minds of the Acehnese. Most authors writing about Aceh since Snouck Hurgronje have perpetuated his opinion (Lombard 1967: 15-16; Snouck Hurgronje 1906 1: 15). This is highly regrettable as reliable primary sources, both accounts by European travelers and literary works, inform us of Aceh's splendor during the seventeenth century.