 Thus he was supposedly the ruler who divided Acehnese society into administrative lineage groups ("kaum" or "sukeë"), but it is unclear whether this attribution is correct.The campaigns of Alauddin began in 1539 when he waged war on the Batak people, who lived to the south of Aceh.The Portuguese traveler Fernão Mendes Pinto mentions that the sultan asked the king of the Bataks to convert to Islam, and attacked him when he refused.