The Battle of Uhud — fought on the 3rd of March 625 CE (3 AH), in which the Muslim force under the Prophet Mohammad was defeated by the Meccans under Abū Sufyān on the slopes of Mount Uhud, north of Medina — is mentioned in The Achehnese only as one of the two traditional explanations of the Prophet’s filed teeth, in the context of the Achehnese custom of tooth-filing (kòh gigèe). Snouck Hurgronje records that “many omit this form of mutilation altogether, either because their teeth are not naturally too large or ugly, or from religious motives. So far from giving this custom a devotional origin, as some Javanese do by alleging that it is in conformity with the example of the Prophet, whose teeth are said to have been shaped as though filed from the time of his birth, or according to others, after having been injured in the battle of Uhud, the Achehnese regard it simply as a personal embellishment and some of their ulamas are opposed to it as being self-mutilation.”
The battle of Uhud in tradition
The Battle of Uhud occupies, in the traditional biography of the Prophet, the place of the great reverse that followed the great victory of Badr. The Muslim force, at Uhud, was defeated; the Prophet himself was wounded, and according to the tradition cited by the Javanese, his teeth were injured in the fighting. The legend that his teeth thereafter took on a “filed” appearance is one of the traditional foundations of the Javanese custom of tooth-filing, by which the teeth are made to imitate, in their owner’s person, the form of the Prophet’s teeth. The Achehnese, Hurgronje notes, give the custom no such devotional origin; they “regard it simply as a personal embellishment”, and some of their ulamas are opposed to it as a form of self-mutilation forbidden by the law.
The Achehnese custom of tooth-filing
The filing of the teeth (kòh gigèe) does not take place with women till after their marriage, “as it is thought proper to leave the decision of this matter to the husband”; in the case of boys it is done in their 12th or 13th year. The filer of teeth (an operation usually performed by women) uses for her work a whetstone (batèe chane). “The better to keep the patient’s mouth open, a piece of betel-nut is thrust between the molars on one side. The teeth to be operated on, i.e. the four front teeth (gigèe dilèe’) and the two ‘dog’s teeth’ (gigèe asèe) of the upper jaw, are rubbed with white onions before the operation, ‘to make them soft.’” The contrast with Java, where the custom is given a devotional origin connected with the battle of Uhud, is one of the many small differences of religious sensibility that mark off Achehnese Islam from that of the central Malay-Indonesian lands.
Place in Achehnese tradition
The Achehnese, in Hurgronje’s account, are not ignorant of the battle of Uhud itself; it forms part of the common stock of Mohammedan tradition that they share with the rest of the Eastern Archipelago. What distinguishes them is their refusal to make the battle the devotional foundation of a custom that, in their own view, is simply a form of personal adornment. The battle of Uhud is, in The Achehnese, one of the rare traces of the early Islamic history that enters, by the side of Achehnese adat, into the religious consciousness of the people. It is mentioned only to be set aside; and the setting-aside is itself a mark of the sobriety and restraint of Achehnese religious feeling, on which Hurgronje elsewhere insists.
See Also
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.