Adat Meureuhom — literally “the custom of the deceased Majesties” (adat = custom, meureuhom = of the deceased lords/Majesties) — is, in Kreemer’s history of Atjèh, the Atjèhnese constitutional principle by which all that has become customary law in the sultanate is attributed to the Sultans in general, and to Iskandar Muda in particular. It is the constitutional mythology by which the Atjèhnese explained to themselves the existence of the customs under which they lived.
The attribution to Iskandar Muda
Kreemer records the principle in his account of Iskandar Muda’s reign: “Onder de Soeltan’s aan wie men gewoon is al wat gewoonterecht is geworden — adat meureuhom (lett.: adat der overleden Majesteiten) — en allerlei sarata (vorstenedicten) toe te schrijven neemt Iskandar Moeda een eerste plaats in” — “Among the Sultans to whom one is accustomed to ascribe all that has become customary law — adat meureuhom (lit.: the adat of the deceased Majesties) — and all kinds of sarata (princely edicts), Iskandar Muda takes a first place.”
The companion institutions
Kreemer groups under the adat meureuhom attribution three principal institutions that Iskandar Muda is said to have introduced: (1) “een stel voorschriften omtrent de bestuursregeling, het hofceremonieel en den handel, bekend onder den naam van Adat Meukoeta Alam” — “a set of regulations concerning the arrangement of government, court ceremonial, and commerce, known by the name of Adat Meukuta Alam”; (2) the tjab sikoereuëng or ninefold royal seal; and (3) the adat meureuhom attribution itself.
Significance
The adat meureuhom principle is, in Kreemer’s narrative, the constitutional mythology of the Atjèh sultanate — the mechanism by which the Atjèhnese located the origin of their political and legal arrangements in the reign of their greatest ruler. As a principle of attribution, it parallels the Snouck Hurgronje-documented tendency (see Adat Meukuta Alam) of the Atjèhnese “to refer all that has become customary law to the Sultans in general (adat pôteu meureuhom) and to Meukuta Alam in particular.” The principle explains both the reverence in which Iskandar Muda’s memory was held and the difficulty of distinguishing, in Atjèhnese constitutional history, between the actual legislation of a given sultan and the retrospective attribution of later customs to his authority.
See Also
- Acheh
- Iskander Muda
- Adat Meukuta Alam
- Tjab Sikoereuëng (ninefold seal)
- sarakata
- adat
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- 1607
- 1636
Source
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Eerste Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1922. Hoofdstuk I, A (“Oudste geschiedenis tot 1824”), blz. 6.