The edicts of the Atjehnese sultans — among them the pieces called by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje tharakata’s — were the written instruments by which some rulers of Atjeh attempted a centralization of authority on state, religious and social ground; author Joh. Langhout, following his authorities, judges that they “have never been able to bring about the least change”, though some of their trade regulations for a time governed life in the harbour places.
The sources
Now and then attempts were made at centralization of the authority, Langhout writes, among them by the issue of some edicts “whereof mention is made o.a. by the writer K. F. H. van Langen in his ‘Het Atjehsche bestuur onder het Sultanaat’”. These edicts, which aimed at a reformation on state, religious and social ground, “hebben echter niet de minste verandering teweeg kunnen brengen” (“have however not been able to bring about the least change”). A number of other pieces, concerning the alteration of the Atjehnese state-arrangement — “if at least the then prevailing governing condition in Atjeh might bear that name” — and some other edicts were found by the afore-named professor (Snouck Hurgronje); in spirit and purport they were wholly equal to the not particularly extensive state-pieces met with by Van Langen.
The tharakata’s and the trade of the capital
Yet it seems, Langhout concedes, that the tharakata’s of which Dr. S. H. makes mention, did have some influence on the stately and social life of the Atjehnese. Thus in one of those pieces the trade, confined to the chief places, was regulated, and the advantages of that trade for some officials established in the chief places were further defined: “Die regelingen hebben inderdaad eenigen tijd het leven en den handel in de havenplaatsen beheerscht” (“those regulations have indeed for some time dominated the life and the trade in the harbour places”). But the unceasing feuds, which many times led to the killing or the expulsion of the princes, the incompetence and unwieldiness of those princes, the striving of chiefs and officials to their own advantage, and the lack of a governing machine working with iron fist — “this all explains that, though state rules were perhaps written down, they were never valid as a living law for land and people” (see Zelfbestuur and Wingewest, Shahbandar of Atjeh).
See Also
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 21–24.