The Arabic-inscribed graves in Atjeh, as described by R. L. Mellema in De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java) (Amsterdam, 1947), are the oldest Muslim graves in the Indonesian archipelago — the graves, in particular, of the saints who brought Islam to the archipelago — distinguished by bearing inscriptions in Arabic, of which Mellema cites Atjeh and Grisee (Gresik) near Soerabaia as the principal examples. The observation places the Atjehnese funerary epigraphy at the head of the archipelago’s Islamic antiquities, and it furnishes a comparative-archaeological point in Mellema’s survey of Muslim burial practice.
Mellema’s account
In his chapter on the Muslim grave (Het Moslimse graf), Mellema describes the characteristic sobriety of the Muslim burial marker: the place is indicated only by two grave-markers (maésan or maédjan), carved palettes of a particular form, one set at the head and the other at the foot of the grave, the form of the palettes indicating whether the deceased is a man or a woman. As a rule, Mellema writes, no grave — “geen enkel graf, zelfs niet op dat van een vorst” — bears an inscription or a name; one is wholly dependent on the statements of the grave-keeper. Where, however, great weight is attached to tradition, such statements may as a rule be trusted, even for royal persons who died some hundreds of years ago.
It is in contrast to this general rule of inscriptionless sobriety that Mellema introduces the Arabic-inscribed graves:
“Slechts de alleroudste graven, in het bijzonder die van heiligen, die de Islaam in de archipel hebben gebracht, zijn voorzien van opschriften in het Arabisch. Voorbeelden ervan vinden we in Atjeh en in Grisee (Gresik) bij Soerabaia.”
That is: only the very oldest graves — in particular those of the saints who brought Islam to the archipelago — are furnished with inscriptions in Arabic. Examples are found in Atjeh and in Grisee (Gresik) near Soerabaia.
The archipelago’s earliest Islamic epigraphy
The observation is of consequence for the early history of Islam in the archipelago. By distinguishing the Arabic-inscribed graves of the earliest period — the graves of the bringers of Islam — from the inscriptionless graves of subsequent centuries, Mellema establishes a chronological and qualitative hierarchy within the archipelago’s Muslim funerary monuments. The Arabic-inscribed graves are, in this hierarchy, the funerary epigraphy of the foundational generation: the saints (heiligen) who introduced Islam to the archipelago, and whose graves therefore enjoy a dual authority — the authority of antiquity and the authority of sainthood. The pairing of Atjeh and Grisee as the two principal sites of such graves is significant: Atjeh, at the northern tip of Sumatra, and Grisee, on the eastern coast of Java, are the two ports at which, in the traditional historiography of the Islamisation of the archipelago, the faith first took firm root. Mellema’s pairing thus reflects the traditional view that the Islamisation of the archipelago proceeded from these two points — a view consistent with the early Muslim kingdoms of Samudra Pasai in north Sumatra and of Demak and Gresik on the north Java coast.
Relation to the graves of saints
Mellema’s observation is made in the same chapter of the survey in which he treats the graves of saints (Graven van heiligen) and the visitation of graves (Grafbezoek). The Arabic-inscribed graves of Atjeh are, in his account, a sub-category of the saintly grave: they are the graves “in het bijzonder … van heiligen, die de Islaam in de archipel hebben gebracht” — in particular of the saints who brought Islam to the archipelago. The inscription is thus a mark not merely of antiquity but of the foundational sainthood of the deceased; and the graves so inscribed are, by that token, the principal sites of the cult of saints in the archipelago. This connects the Arabic-inscribed graves of Atjeh to the broader Atjehnese institution of the kramat — the wonder-working grave of a saint — treated elsewhere in the corpus.
The funerary context
Mellema’s survey of the Muslim grave covers, in succession: the sobriety of the grave-marker (maésan or maédjan); the absence of inscriptions on all but the oldest graves; the grave-keeper as the sole authority for the identity of the deceased; the Arabic-inscribed graves of the bringers of Islam (the present subject); the koentjoeb or grave-house; the pajong (parasol) as a mark of honour at funerals; the slametan; and the visitation of graves. The Arabic-inscribed graves of Atjeh thus take their place within a comprehensive account of Indonesian Muslim funerary practice, as the exceptional — the inscribed — minority within the general rule of inscriptionless sobriety.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Mellema’s observation is significant as a mid-twentieth-century colonial comparative source that places the Atjehnese funerary epigraphy at the head of the archipelago’s Islamic antiquities, and that pairs Atjeh with Grisee as the two principal sites of the oldest Arabic-inscribed graves. The observation furnishes a source independent of the Snouckian monographic tradition for the antiquity and authority of the Atjehnese saintly graves, and it connects the Atjehnese epigraphy to the broader questions of the Islamisation of the archipelago and of the cult of saints. The entry thus complements the corpus’s treatments of the Atjehnese kramat, of the early Muslim kingdoms of Pasei and Demak, and of the comparative funerary archaeology of the archipelago.
See Also
- De Islaam in Indonesië (Mellema, 1947)
- R. L. Mellema
- Kramat
- Graves of saints in Atjeh
- Pasei
- Samudra Pasai
- Demak
- Gresik
- Soerabaia
- Acheh
- Java
- Sumatra
- Sainthood in Atjehnese Islam
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers (1893-94)
- 1947
Source
De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java), by Drs. R. L. Mellema. Mededeling No. LXXVII, Afd. Volkenkunde No. 25. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Vereniging “Indisch Instituut,” 1947. “Het Moslimse graf,” p. 45; and “Graven van heiligen,” pp. 46–47.