In 1955, he earned his doctorate from Leiden University with a dissertation which was later published as a book, "De Hikajat Atjeh" (). Topics related to Aceh has become his personal interest due to his personal ancestry background, which later also became his main topic of his dissertation. His interest was mainly driven by his personal background because at that time he was part of the first-known generation of Acehnese who studied at the Leiden University in Netherlands. Moreover, at that time he was motivated by the fact that there were not as many books written by native Indonesians that discuss about the state of Aceh and its natives (the Acehnese people and Acehnese language). In addition, Teuku Iskandar adore the Acehnese culture so much, as he told to his children.