Rateb Saman (also ratib Sammān, rattéb saman; from Arabic rātib, a fixed liturgy) was among the most popular religious litanies (ratébs) performed in Acheh and throughout the Malay-Indonesian world. It was derived from — and named after — the saint Muhammad Samman (also called Shaikh Samman or Cheh Saman), the sainted founder of a tariqah or mystic order who lived at Medina a couple of centuries before Snouck Hurgronje’s writing and whose Sammaniyyah order gave the rite its place in the devotional life of the archipelago. The litany was one of the religious exercises of the Sammaniyyah order, and was popular among the Mohammedans of the old stamp throughout the East Indian Archipelago.
Description
The rateb Saman was characterised by the simultaneous intoning by groups of participants in a “terribly noisy” fashion, as Snouck Hurgronje describes it. The litany was popular not only in Acheh but also in Java, where it could be heard almost every week in many Batavian kampongs. In its most clamorous form it took the alternative Achehnese names rateb meuse and kuluhut — names derived from the culminating state of trance that the rite produced.
Place in the meunasah
The rateb Saman was one of the religious observances that gave the meunasah (village chapel) its character as a house of prayer as well as a club and sleeping-place for the men of the gampong. Among the furniture of the meunasah were the rapa’i or rapana (kettledrums, also called rapai) and the wooden rings known as pulèt or pulet, which were required not only for the rateb pulet and rateb sadati — the secular or quasi-secular chants that borrowed the name and noise of religious litanies — but also for the genuine mystical exercises such as the rateb Saman. The litany thus belonged to that part of Achehnese religious life in which the popular amusements of the gampong shaded into the genuine practices of the mystic orders. The young people of the gampong delighted more in the chanting of the other ratébs — such as the ratéb pulèt and the ratéb sadati — which had in common with the religious litanies only the name and the noise, and which were more akin to games and recreations.
The form of the recitation
The rateb Saman consisted of formulas drawn from the dikr of the Sammaniyyah order, recited in unison by a seated company under the lead of the teungku. The chant rose in volume and speed, the formulas growing progressively shorter and the tempo faster, until, in its more ecstatic forms, the participants — overcome by what they regarded as the violence of their spiritual transport — rose up, sat down again, leapt, danced, and finally fell to the floor in sheer exhaustion from the ecstasy arising from their contemplation of the divine.
This culminating state of trance was called do’ by the Achehnese — a term derived from the Arabic dauq (“taste”), which in mystical vocabulary denotes the tasting of higher spiritual enjoyments, but which in Achehnese usage had narrowed to the meaning “trance.” It is from this feature that the most clamorous form of the rite takes its alternative names rateb meuse and kuluhut. The performance forms part of the wider Achehnese culture of kanduri feasts and night-long religious observances that punctuate the fasting month.
The peutamat daroh
The rateb Saman was most characteristically performed on the night of the peutamat daroh, the feast that marked the conclusion of a complete recitation of the Quran during the Puasa (Ramadhan). On that occasion the ordinary traweh prayers were followed not by the usual meudaroih (silent listening to a solo chanter) but by this clamorous rite. The combination placed the rateb Saman at the very summit of Achehnese religious enthusiasm: the solemn completion of the Sacred Book, the noisy chanting of the Sammaniyyah formulas, and the trance that followed, all joined to make the peutamat daroh one of the great nights of the Achehnese year, alongside the traweh prayers, the meudaroih Quranic recitations, and the special kanduri associated with the Prophet’s birth.
Popularity and condemnation
Although the rateb Saman was understood by the ulamas to belong properly to the sphere of supererogatory devotion, its vitality in Achehnese life came from popular enthusiasm rather than from the learned tradition. Its blend of vocal chant, rhythmic movement, and induced trance placed it, in Snouck Hurgronje’s classification, among those Achehnese observances in which orthodox Shafi’ite practice and popular mysticism shaded into one another. The stricter ulamas looked askance at the transports of the Sammaniyyah, but the popularity of the rite was too great to be set aside; the young people, in particular, delighted more in the chanting of the rateb pulet and rateb sadati, which had in common with the religious litanies only the name and the noise.
Wider significance
The rateb Saman represented the penetration of Sufi devotional practice into popular Achehnese religion, connecting the gampong worship traditions to the broader world of Islamic mystical brotherhoods (tariqa). The name Samman referred to the Sammani order of Sufism, whose founder or an important representative was this saint of Medina, who died at Medina in 1152 Hijrah. The rite thus connected the village chapels of Aceh to a devotional chain that reached back through the Sammaniyyah order to the saintly circles of 18th-century Medina.
See Also
- Meunasah
- Kanduri
- Gampong
- Teungku
- Muhammad Samman
- Shaikh Samman
- Cheh Saman
- Medina
- Rateb pulet and rateb sadati
- Peutamat daroh
- Ramadhan (fasting month)
- Puasa (Ramadhan fasting month)
- Traweh (Tarawih)
- Kanduri Mo’lot
- Ulema
- East Indian Archipelago
- Great Acheh
Source
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, § 5, p. 63.
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.