The Friday service (Jum’at or Jumu’ah) is the congregational prayer which the Mohammedan law requires of every free male believer of full age, in place of the ordinary midday prayer on Fridays. In Acheh, as C. Snouck Hurgronje explains, the institution of the Friday service lies at the origin of the Achehnese political subdivision of the country into mukims. The Arabic word mukim properly means “inhabitant of a place”; the Mohammedan law, as interpreted by the Shafiʽite school which is dominant in Acheh, teaches “that in order to form a quorum for a Friday service the presence of at least forty free male mukims of full age is required. If the number falls short of forty, those assembled must hold in place of the Friday service an ordinary midday prayer. In places where the number of forty can never be reckoned on, no arrangements whatever are made for the Friday service; hence in the gampong chapels in Acheh as well as other parts of the Archipelago the requisite apparatus for this service is never to be found.”
The Mohammedan law requires of every free male believer of full age that he should attend the Friday service if such be held within a certain distance of his abode, unless circumstances — themselves clearly defined — prevent him from doing so. From this personal duty he is by no means excused on the ground that there is, for example, a full congregation of forty without him. Thus “pious and influential Mohammedans must make it their object to multiply the opportunities for attending this service, and to further the erection of mosques for Friday prayer in all places where a congregation of forty or upwards can be reckoned on.” In Acheh as elsewhere, the devotees of religion laboured in this direction from the time that the creed of Islam began to take root: “Where a number of gampongs lay sufficiently close to one another to admit of their being united into a single Friday association … they constructed a mosque (meuseugit), choosing for the purpose the most central possible site.” This Friday association was the political unit known as the mukim — typically composed of from ten to twelve gampongs grouped about a central mosque.
The Friday service was accordingly one of the duties which the letters patent with the ninefold seal specifically required the Panglima Meuseugit Raya to enforce: “Let orders be given henceforth duly to perform the Friday service and the five daily prayers, to build meuseugits, deahs and meunasahs, also to contribute zakat and pitrah on all things that be subject thereto.” The officials of the Friday service itself were the khatib (chatib in Achehnese), who takes the lead in the Friday prayers and preaches the sermon, and the bilal (bilèë), who intones the call to prayer. These officers stood beside the imeum, the chief of the mukim, in the regular hierarchy of religious officials; and the expense of the Friday service and the maintenance of the meuseugit were among the principal items of religious expenditure in the mukim.
In practice, however, the Friday service was less universally attended in Acheh than the law required. As Hurgronje observes in connection with the religious life of the Achehnese, the great majority of the laity performed the prescribed prayers only sporadically, and the Friday congregation was drawn chiefly from the leubes, teungkus, and other professional representatives of religion. The contrast between the formal prescriptions of the law — as set out, for example, in the letters patent to the Panglima Meuseugit Raya — and the actual practice of the Achehnese was a constant theme of the religious reformers, of whom the most distinguished in the period before the Dutch war was the Habib Abdurrahman. The Friday service nonetheless retained its place as the principal congregational observance of Achehnese Islam, and its quorum of forty gave its name to the basic political unit of the country.
Additional account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Friday service (Jumu’ah)
The Friday service (Jumu’ah, Achehnese Jeumeunat) is the weekly congregational prayer of Islam, performed in place of the ordinary midday prayer on Fridays. The Achehnese name of Friday itself — Jeumeunat — is identical with the name of the prayer, and the word jeumeunat appears in the Achehnese names of the days of the week: Aleuhat (Sunday), Seunanyan (Monday), Seulasa (Tuesday), Rabō (Wednesday), Hamèh (Thursday), Jeumeunat (Friday), Sabtu (Saturday). The naming of Friday after its prayer is a permanent token of the central place which the Jumu’ah occupied in the Achehnese conception of the religious week.
The proper performance of the Friday service was one of the standing obligations which the sultans of Acheh imposed, in their letters patent, on their appointees. The letters patent with the ninefold seal issued on the 4th of Rabi’ al-Awwal 1307 H (28 October 1889) by Sultan Alaedin Muhamad Daud Shah Juhan to the Panglima Meuseugit Raya of Banda Acheh directs that “orders be given henceforth duly to perform the Friday service and the five daily prayers, to build meuseugits, deahs and meunasahs, also to contribute zakat and pitrah.” The Friday service thus stood at the head of the religious duties whose enforcement the sultan committed to his deputy.
The Jumu’ah also entered into the calendar of the ecclesiastical year. The last Friday of the month preceding the fasting month was the occasion on which, by the sultans’ edicts, a council of the learned was held to fix the commencement of the Puasa; the date was then made known to the people by the firing of guns on the previous day. The Friday service further punctuated the great feasts of the year: the recitation of the *ratib saman]] and other litanies was often held on Friday evenings, and the Friday sermons of the great festivals — the two ‘Id sermons at the ‘Id al-Fitr and the ‘Id al-Adha — were the principal public discourses of the Achehnese religious year.
The Achehnese observance of the Friday service followed, in its broad outlines, the prescriptions of the Shafiʽite school common to the Mohammedans of the Eastern Archipelago. The khatib delivered the khutbah, the bilal intoned the call, and the congregation — ideally of forty free male mukims of full age — performed the two rak’ahs of the Friday prayer behind the imam. Where the requisite quorum could not be gathered, the law required the ordinary midday prayer (Ẓuhr) to be said instead. As C. Snouck Hurgronje repeatedly observes, however, the contrast between the formal prescriptions of the religious law and the practice of the Achehnese laity was wide; and the Friday service, like the five daily prayers, was in fact discharged more regularly by the professional representatives of religion than by the generality of the people.
See Also
- Five daily prayers (seumayangs)
- Letters patent with the ninefold seal to Panglima Meuseugit Raya
- Panglima Meuseugit Raya
- Establishment of the bale menhakamah (religious court)
- Habib Abdurrahman
- Kanduri (general)
- Eight-year cycle (Achehnese calendar)
- Puasa (Ramadhan fasting month)
- Great Feast of Sacrifices)
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.