The Edict of Shamsul-alam is the name given by C. Snouck Hurgronje to a royal decree, traditionally attributed to the Sultan Shamsul-alam of Acheh, which expressly recognized the ordeal known as peulieh beusoe — “licking the hot iron” — as a legitimate mode of proof in criminal proceedings. Snouck Hurgronje cites the edict in The Achehnese as a notable example of the way in which Achehnese sovereigns gave formal sanction to indigenous judicial usages that lay outside the strict Mohammedan law.
The Ordeal
The peulieh beusoe ordeal is described by Snouck Hurgronje alongside several others employed in Acheh for the identification of thieves and other accused persons: the boiling of oil (peutasa’), the bolting of raw rice (peumité breuëh), and the burying of an enchanted kundur-fruit (teunianom). In the hot-iron ordeal, the accused is required to lick an iron heated to redness; the tongue of the guilty party and none other is supposed to be scalded. The success of the ordeal is held to depend on the operator’s being able to heat the iron in the proper manner and to recite the necessary incantations.
Royal Sanction
The fact that one of the sultans should have placed his seal of approval upon so indigenous a practice is significant. It shows that the Achehnese sovereigns did not confine their legislative activity to the enforcement of the Mohammedan law, but were prepared, at least on occasion, to recognize adat usages of pre-Islamic or non-Islamic origin. The edict thus takes its place beside the better-known edicts of Meukuta Alam as an example of royal intervention in the judicial customs of the country.
Practical Effect
In practice, the utility of ordeals lay, as Snouck Hurgronje observes, in the belief which the majority of the people had in them. Where they were prepared with the requisite circumstance and solemnity, the guilty party often confessed at once, before recourse was had to the actual trial; and even if this were not so, the demeanour of the criminal at the commencement of the ordeal generally proclaimed his guilt. Some uleebalangs, knowing this, were wont to invite the attendance on such occasions of a teungku from some distant place, distinguished by a great beard or some other impressive characteristic — a theatrical apparition that often produced confession without the necessity of resorting to the iron itself. Such administration of oaths was an affair of the gampong which the keuchi’ could undertake on his own responsibility, but the ordeals could only be applied by the uleebalang.
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.