The bait ul-mâl (Arabic bayt al-māl, “house of property,” the public treasury of Islam) was, in Atjeh, the fund to which unadministered estates were nominally transferred by the oeléëbalangs, and out of which the needs of the mosque and the honoraria of its pegawai’s (officers) were to be met.
Seizure of heirless estates
D. W. N. de Boer recorded that it was not, as a matter of adat-lawful rule, the oeléëbalang’s prerogative to annex for himself the lands left by persons dying without heirs, or by deceased strangers — the gross arbitrariness of many zelfbestuurders (self-governing rulers) notwithstanding, and compare Van Vollenhoven’s Adatrecht, p. 198. In “dit streng Mohammedaansch land” — this strictly Mohammedan country — such unadministered estates were seized ex officio by the oeléëbalangs on behalf, “althans zoo luidt de formule” (at least so runs the formula), of the bait ul-mâl.
Deduction of the ghafan
The transfer took place after there had been defrayed, from the proceeds of the goods left by the deceased — the so-called eeang male — the ghafan appropriate to his rank and station: literally the shroud, but used pars pro toto for all funeral costs.
De Boer’s reservation
De Boer entered a dry reservation about the working of the rule in practice. That a more or less considerable portion of the proceeds sometimes remained in the oeléëbalang’s treasury, or that on a windfall inheritance sudden changes took place among the interested mosque personnel through dismissal for unfitness or otherwise, was not, he wrote, to be regarded as a proper local deviation from the general rule.
See Also
Source
Het recht op den grond in Atjeh, by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.