Adat and Hokm Atjeh proverb — the Atjehnese aphorism cited in Prof. Dr. Kernkamp’s chapter De invloed van den Islam in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946) — is the formulation that defines the relationship between adat (customary law) and hokm (Islamic religious law) in Atjeh. Kernkamp introduces it in the course of his discussion of Islamic influence on family life: “Hokm (religious law) and Adat (indigenous customary law) are inseparable, like God’s essence and His attributes”, reads the proverb, “but, as Snouck Hurgronje, the great connoisseur of this material, adds, ‘most of these is the adat’.” The fuller formulation, also cited by Kernkamp, runs: “de adat is als het binden van het dier, de hoekom als het snijden” — “adat is like binding the beast, hokm like slaughtering it.”
The proverb’s meaning
The proverb distinguishes the two domains of Atjehnese law by the social character of their handling. The adat — the customary law of marriage, inheritance, land tenure, village order — is “like binding the beast”: it is the work of many hands, done by the village collectively, requiring the cooperation of the keuchik (village head), the teungku (religious teacher), the imeum (village prayer leader), the elders and the assembled householders. The hokm — the specifically religious law of ritual, marriage contracts, divorce, inheritance shares as fixed by the Quran — is “like slaughtering”: it is the work of a single skilled hand, the kali (religious judge), whose expertise in the Arabic sources of Islamic law cannot be shared by the laity. The distinction is not, therefore, between Islamic and non-Islamic law, but between two modes of handling law that are both, in Atjehnese eyes, Islamic.
Significance
The proverb is one of the most-cited formulations of the Atjehnese legal synthesis. It captures, in a single image, the characteristic Atjehnese view that adat and hokm are inseparable (the one cannot exist without the other, as God’s essence cannot exist without His attributes) but not equal (most of life is governed by adat, only a narrower domain by hokm). The same view underlies the Atjeh institution of the kali (religious judge) — historically independent, but whose jurisdiction Kernkamp notes “has been usurped by the secular heads, who now use them only as unsalaried advisers, without any appointment, although each head has his own kali.” The proverb is also the Atjehnese counterpart to the wider Indonesian distinction between adat and hukum (in standard Indonesian spelling), and it has been cited in subsequent Atjehnese and Dutch scholarly literature as a succinct statement of the Atjehnese legal-religious position.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- invloed van den Islam — influence of Islam
- adat — customary law
- hokm — Islamic religious law
- hoekom — Islamic religious law (Atjeh form)
- hukum — Islamic religious law
- kali — religious judge (Atjeh pronunciation)
- teungku — religious teacher
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Atjehsch — Acehnese (adjective)
- Acheh — Aceh
- Batak — Batak
- keuchik — village-head
- imeum — village prayer-leader
- stelling — position
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Hokm
- Adat
- Adat Meukuta Alam
- Adat Meureuhom
- Atjeh Adatrecht (ter Haar account)
- Atjehsche Invloed op Adat en Bestuursinstellingen der Batakken
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. Kreemer
- Acheh
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 101–102 (chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).