Habib Abdoerrachman’s 1884 memorandum — the memorie of 3 Moharram 1302, that is October 1884, sent from Mekka by the Habib to the Dutch Indies government — is the proposal by which the banished Arab, drawing his colonial pension in Arabia, offered himself as the future Regent of Atjeh. The seal at the foot of the document reads: Rijksbestierder van het Gouvernement ATJEH — State-Administrator of the Government of ATJEH.
The context: the Habib in Mekka
The Habib had submitted on 13 October 1878 on the condition that he settle in Mekka with a yearly pension of ten thousand dollars — een vorstelijk jaargeld — and had been transported to Djeddah on 24 November 1878 aboard Hr. Ms. “Curaçao”. Deze goede “rijksbestierder” van Atjeh hij had overigens in Mekka nog veelvuldig contact met Atjehers die ter bedevaart gingen en tevens hun licht bij hem opstaken. From Mekka he still watched Atjeh’s affairs; the memorandum of October 1884 was the result. Curiositeitshalve laat ik dat stuk hier afdrukken, Zentgraff writes.
The six points
The Habib’s schema opens: Ten opzichte van de Atjehsche zaken zou ik de volgende punten willen voorstellen — and proceeds to lay out his plan. He proposed himself as Regent of Atjeh, with the title of Radja or some similar dignity; he was to cooperate with a college of chiefs, scholars, and notables, who would assist him in the government of the country; and the schema as a whole was, he claimed, a plan whose execution tot de onderwerping van Atjeh zou leiden. Hij zag zichzelf ulteraard als de aanstaande “regent” van Atjeh. Men kan die verwachting nu een weinig dwaas vinden, en nogal arrogant, doch men moet haar zien in het licht van dien tijd, opkomend in de ziel van een man wiens vrijwillig heengaan van Atjeh zóó belangrijk werd geacht, dat de Kompeuni hem een voor Arabië vorstelijk jaargeld betaalde.
The seal
The Habib signs the memorandum: (Get.) HABIB ABDOERRACHMAN 3 Moharram 1302. (October 1884) EL ZAHIR. Beneath the signature stands the seal — Hieronder een zegel, waarin: “Rijksbestierder van het Gouvernement ATJEH”. The title was his own: a self-conferred dignity that none in Atjeh had yet granted and that the Dutch government, for its part, did not take up. The schema was not acted upon; it remained, in Zentgraff’s word, a curiositeit.
Significance
The 1884 memorandum is the last political document of the Habib’s career. He had been, in the late 1870s, een zóó gevaarlijk tegenstander that the government had been willing to pay him ten thousand dollars a year to remove him from Atjeh; in Mekka, six years later, his memorandum shows him still imagining a return as Regent. The proposal coincides, almost exactly, with the rise of Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro — nà de periode van den Habib zorgden de Tiro-oelama’s hiervoor — and the religious leadership of the prang sabil passed from the Habib to the Tiro family, where it would stay for thirty years.
See Also
- Habib Abdoerrachman el Zahir
- Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro
- Tiro-oelama’s ultimatum letter (1885)
- Brief van 18 Radjab 1325
- Prang sabil
- Oelama
- Uleebalang
- Koetaradja
- Aceh War
- 1878
- 1884
- 1885
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.