Mesigit

Mesigit — Atjehnese/Dutch spelling of standard Indonesian masjid, from Arabic masjid (مسجد), “mosque” — is the term used in Atjeh (and elsewhere in the Indies) for the Friday congregational mosque, as distinct from the smaller village prayer-house (meunasah in Atjeh, langgar or tadjoeg on Java). The term and its architectural form are recorded in Prof. Dr. Kernkamp’s chapter De invloed van den Islam in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946).

Kernkamp’s account of the Indonesian mosque

Kernkamp’s account of the mesigit opens with the architectural form: “In general, in an Eastern land, the architecture strikes the stranger as one of the most characterising Muslim aspects. That applies then especially to the places of worship, the mosques, which in the core lands of the Islam still determine the cityscape of the great centres much more strongly than is the case with our churches. This is naturally above all to be attributed to the there generally used pointed minarets, from whose upper gallery the call to the communal ritual worship is galmed out. In the Indies, too, some mosques have such a minaret. Most, however, lack them and are recognisable by the peculiar, mountain-like form of the roof, which consists of 3 to 5 storeys with open intermediate spaces. The call to prayer often takes place from an opening in the roof.”

The Atjeh-specific note: “Because of the slight penetrating power of the human voice in the densely overgrown tropical nature, and for example in Atjeh also because the mosque is usually situated outside the settlement, however, often also a sort of drum is used to urge the faithful to the observance of their duties.”

The mosque interior

Kernkamp’s account of the mesigit’s interior gives the typical Indonesian form: “The internal space of the buildings, in the Indies, gives little occasion for admiration. The colourful marble claddings of Constantinople will be sought there in vain. Usually the internal space, behind a spacious front gallery where of old justice was spoken, consists only of a single room, of which at most a part is screened off to give women the opportunity to attend the Friday service unseen. There lie some long, narrow mats and carpets, which after the service are again put away, on which the pious are to take their places in rows. The Quran-lecterns are sometimes indeed finely carved. There further hang some lamps, there stands a simple pulpit, and further there is a niche in the wall that indicates the direction to Mecca. Further, one has at one’s disposal services for communal meals of a religious character, a staff for the preacher, and a small library of pious works and sermons. Sometimes there also belong to the inventory long strips of white goods (moesala), which serve as prayer-rugs. All this movable good, too, is outside the trade (wakap).”

The Atjeh great mosque

The “only more or less pompous mosque, in Koeta Radja, built in Byzantine style” — the Dutch-built replacement Meuseugit Raja of Koeta Radja, constructed to replace the original mosque destroyed in the burning of 1873 — is, in Kernkamp’s account, the single exception to the general rule that Indonesian mosques are architecturally unremarkable. The Dutch-built Meuseugit Raja cost more than f 200,000; the Atjehners refused to use it; Snouck Hurgronje pronounced it “een ledig monument onzer dwaasheid” (see Snouck Hurgronje’s ledig monument verdict).

Significance for Atjeh

For the Atjeh-focused reader, the mesigit is significant as the institutional centre of the Friday congregational sembahjang (ritual prayer), the Friday sermon, and the communal meals of religious character that Kernkamp describes. The meunasah serves the daily prayer-life of the Atjeh village; the mesigit serves the weekly Friday prayer of the Atjeh town. The personnel of the mesigit — the imam, the chatib (preacher), the bilal (caller), and the chief panghoeloe (mosque director) — together constitute the principal public religious officials of the Atjeh Muslim community.

Dutch terms used in this article

Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
invloed van den Islam — influence of Islam
imam — prayer-leader
chatib — preacher
bilal — caller to prayer
panghoeloe — mosque director
mesigit — Friday congregational mosque
Meuseugit Raja — great mosque of Koeta Radja
Meuseugit Raya — great mosque of Koeta Radja
Meunasah — village prayer-house
meunasah — village prayer-house
langgar — prayer-house
tadjoeg — prayer-house
moesala — prayer-rug
wakap — Islamic perpetual endowment
sembahjang — ritual prayer
sembah — reverential gesture
pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
Atjeh — Aceh
Atjehner — Acehnese
Acheh — Aceh
Koeta Radja — Kutaradja
Kutaradja — Kutaradja
Java — Java
ledig monument onzer dwaasheid — empty monument of our folly
Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
Dr. — Doctor

Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)

A Messigit — the Dutch rendering of masdjid, mosque — appears throughout De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh not only as a place of worship but as a fortified point repeatedly contested, captured and converted to military use in Groot-Atjeh.

Mosques converted into Dutch posts

At Biloel, the fortification erected in the night of 20 May–21 May 1894 was raised om de oude Messigit, around the old mosque, whose roof had been burnt and renewed; within its white wall the officers’ quarters were established, and the post commander emerged from it each midday in night-trousers and kabaai (loose jacket) when the provision cart arrived. At Lam Koenjit too the officers lived in an old Messigit. At Toengkoeb, the liveliness that had formerly reigned om de oude Messigit under General van der Heijden was contrasted with the stillness of the 1890s garrison.

Mosques as Achehnese strongpoints

The Messigit Siem was one of three positions of the Moslemin on the road between Kroeng Kali and Toengkoeb, taken by Overste Sievers in October 1893 at the cost of Luitenant Weyerman and three men killed and two officers and fifty men wounded. Hooijer wrote that the defenders seemed to draw strength from the consecration the place possessed in their eyes — a place that had so often been a meeting-point for the religious and worldly festivals of which they were so fond — and that Dutch bullets had to fly like howling hailstorms across the sawah (wet rice-field) plain before they gave up their sanctuary.

In the tale of the old Ambonese soldier at Toengkoeb, the main column of General van der Heijden had sought to approach a strongly held Messigit from the rear, since its front was covered by marshes and a series of fortifications; brought by its Achehnese guide directly opposite the house of prayer, it received a fire that killed the guide and two soldiers and wounded an officer and sixteen men, and the artillery threw a granaatkartets through its roof and ceiling.

Architecture

Of Masdjid Siem Hooijer noted that the old stone wall was a remnant of earlier times, while the roof — differing in form from the double broken roofs usually raised above such houses of prayer — dated from a later period, after the torch of war had passed over it.

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Friday mosque. Usually modest, mostly open buildings, poorly maintained. Floor of planks on stilts or just stamped earth. Roof on 16 octagonal (not round) stilts, covered with sagopalm leaves. Big drum hangs outside to announce prayer times. No minarets. A masonry tank or reservoir for ritual washing in front. Mihrab niche on west wall toward Mecca. Minbar: preacher leans on a staff with white turban.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 165, 166.

Sources

D. van den Berg, Cornelis Jacobus Snijders (1852–1939): Een leven in dienst van zijn Land en zijn Volk (Voorburg: September 1944), pp. 28–32 (Missigit Longbatta), p. 32 (Mandarsah Poetih). Koninklijke Bibliotheek shelfmark 0301 4872.

DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf, p. 9.

Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter IV, XVI. The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906. Chapter I, § 6, pp. 80–88. De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 2: Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 42–44, 46–47. Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 14–17, 20, 24–30, 34–37, 49, 102. 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt, pp. 122‑124. De verovering van Atjeh’s groote Missigit by J.F.D. Bruinsma, Sneek, 1889, pp. 13-18.

Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 84–85 (chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).

De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 12, 18, 22, 24, 32.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.

Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 165, 166.

tags	concept, religious, islamic, achehnese, architecture, building, acehnese, fortification, aceh-war, religion, islam, mosque, place, mesigit, aceh, 1873, military
aliases	Masigit, Mosque, Indonesian mosque, Atjeh mesigit, Missigit, Masjid, Atjehese mosque, Atjeh mosque, Meusigit, Mesjid, Meuseugit, Friday mosque, Mesigit of Atjeh, De Mesigit, Fortified Mosque of the Kraton, Mesigit building, Mesigit (Aceh), Atjeh's Groote Missigit, Great Missigit, Groote Missigit, Masjid Raya, Messigit, Masdjid, the mosque as fortification

Explorer