Hajj

The Hajj — the Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mecca — is treated by C. Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese chiefly in connection with its social and economic effects on Achehnese society: the slaves brought home from Mecca by returning pilgrims, the religious influence acquired by those who had made the journey, and the indirect contribution of the pilgrimage to the Dutch colonial problem through the contacts it fostered between Achehnese and the wider Mohammedan world.

The Pilgrim and His Household

The most concrete trace of the hajj in the daily life of Acheh was the African slave. “Still more common is it,” Snouck Hurgronje writes, “to see slaves brought home from Mekka by those who have performed the Hajj. These Africans are known by the Achehnese under the generic name of Abeusi (Abyssinians) irrespectively of what may be the land of their birth.” Concubinage with female slaves of such origin was extremely rare; they were allowed to marry among themselves or with Niasese slaves. It was considered a mark of distinction to have such Abeusis as household servants. At Ulee Lheue (Olehleh) there lived, in Snouck Hurgronje’s day, a freed Circassian slave, formerly the property of Habib Abdurrahman, who also imported Hindus as slaves into Acheh — though such cases were rare.

Influence on Religious Life

The pilgrimage was one of the channels through which the religious life of Acheh was kept in touch with the wider Mohammedan world. Those who had performed the hajj — known after their return as haji — enjoyed a certain respect in the community, and were often enrolled as members of a ṭarīqah (mystic brotherhood) in Mecca. The ṭarīqahs so popular in other parts of Sumatra did not, however, flourish in Acheh, though sundry Achehnese hajis had enrolled themselves as members. Snouck Hurgronje could thus “overlook three mystic associations which form so weighty a factor in the religion of other parts of the Archipelago.”

Achehnese pilgrims also came under the direct influence of the people of Mecca, who took pains to foster doctrines profitable to themselves. The Mecca folk, for instance, did their best to foster the doctrine that it was an extremely meritorious act to offer the hakikah sacrifice for a child in the holy city; they thus reaped the profits on the sale of the goats and at the same time enjoyed their share of the meat. Many Achehnese were, however, aware that the hakikah was more properly offered at home.

The Pilgrimage and the State

The performance of the hajj was, before the war, supervised by the uleebalangs, who charged fees for the certificates required for the issue of passports and those for the haj. The pilgrimage was, for the Dutch colonial authorities, an object of some anxiety: it was the channel through which Achehnese pilgrims came into contact with the pan-Islamic sentiment of Mecca, and through which, as Snouck Hurgronje himself had observed during his residence in Arabia (1884–1885), “Mohammedan fanaticism” exerted its influence on the “obstinate resistance of the Achehnese to Dutch rule.” The Dutch authorities could not, however, interfere with the pilgrimage without offending the religious sentiment of the whole Archipelago, and the hajj accordingly continued to be performed throughout the Achehnese war.

The institution of the deputy-pilgrimage — the badal — extended the influence of the hajj beyond the circle of those who had actually made the journey. The expenses of a deputy-pilgrim were treated as a debt to Allah surviving a man’s death, and were deducted from his estate before distribution to the heirs.

Additional account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Haj

The Haj — the Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mecca — appears in C. Snouck Hurgronje’s The Achehnese chiefly in connection with the administrative control exercised by the uleebalangs over the issue of passports and certificates required for the journey. Although the institution itself is treated more fully elsewhere in the book, the Achehnese context of the pilgrimage is the bureaucratic supervision of travel, which formed one of the regular perquisites of territorial office in pre-war Acheh.

The Uleebalang’s Fees

Snouck Hurgronje lists, among the sources of income of an uleebalang, the fees paid for the certificates required for the issue of ordinary passports and those for the haj. The certification of intending pilgrims was thus a recognised branch of the uleebalang’s administrative activity, alongside the imposition of imposts on the sale of firewood, bricks, cocoanuts, and cocoanut oil; the share of all jungle-produce or plants felled in the forests; the gifts of the rice or fruits that first ripen; the portion of all cattle slaughtered; the fees for the right to collect turtles’ eggs; the share of the profits of gambling; and a portion of the pitrah and jakeuet. Where pepper was grown, the chief got so much a pikul as tcase.

This control over the issue of passports must be understood against the background of the Mohammedan law of the pilgrimage. The journey to Mecca is, in the law of Islam, a duty incumbent on every adult Muslim who has the means to perform it; and the law of the Shafi’ite school — the school to which the Achehnese belong — permits the duty to be postponed indefinitely, though not to be neglected. The Achehnese who wished to perform the pilgrimage was therefore obliged, before leaving the country, to obtain the certificate of his uleebalang, which served both as a passport and as a record of his status.

The Pilgrimage and the Slave Trade

A further connection between the haj and Achehnese society is mentioned in Snouck Hurgronje’s discussion of the slave population. It was very common, he notes, to see slaves brought home from Mecca by those who had performed the pilgrimage. These Africans were known by the Achehnese under the generic name of Abeusi (Abyssinians), irrespective of what might be the land of their birth. Concubinage with female slaves of such origin was extremely rare; they were allowed to marry among themselves or with Niasese slaves. It was considered a mark of distinction to have such Abeusis as household servants.

The Debt to Allah

The pilgrimage thus enters Achehnese family law in another connection — the so-called “debt to Allah” which survives a man’s death and must be discharged from his estate. Where the deceased has been in a position to perform the haj during his lifetime but has availed himself of the permission given by the Shafi’ite school to postpone indefinitely the fulfilment of this duty, the expenses of a deputy haji (*badal*) are deducted from the effects after death. The performance of the pilgrimage by deputy was thus a recognised expedient of Achehnese inheritance practice; and the costs of that deputy-pilgrimage, like the fees for the original certificate, eventually passed through the hands of the uleebalang.

Additional account from De Islaam in Indonesië (1947) — the Haddji title

Mellema, in his comparative ethnological survey De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java) (Amsterdam, 1947), records the social prestige of the Haddji title in Atjeh and the wider archipelago from the comparative side, complementing the Snouckian account given above. In his chapter on the haddj — the fifth pillar of the Muslim law, the pilgrimage to Mecca — Mellema describes the position of the returned pilgrim in the Indonesian society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the earlier period, when a much smaller number of Indonesians performed the pilgrimage owing to the far greater difficulties of the journey, the returned Haddji could still occupy a singular place in the stratified society of the archipelago: “Het kon gebeuren, dat zo iemand zelfs nog bij zijn leven een zekere graad van heiligheid bereikte” — it could happen that such a person attained, even in his lifetime, a certain degree of holiness.

The Dutch, Mellema continues, saw in the returned Haddjis a kind of “priesters” (priests) — especially when, after their return, they continued to wear Arab dress or at least distinguished themselves from their fellow-countrymen by a white cloth wound round the head in the manner of a turban. Mellema is careful to add, however, that “de pelgrims zijn na hun terugkeer geen priesters” — the pilgrims are not priests after their return — since Islam knows no priesthood; and that the majority of the pilgrims returned no different from how they had departed, and were not, in general, “infected” in Mecca with ideas dangerous to the state. The Dutch suspicion of the returned Haddji as a potential carrier of pan-Islamic or anti-colonial politics is thus, in Mellema’s account, overstated.

The returned Haddji who had spent some years in Mecca in the study of the law and the faith might feel called to impart his newly acquired knowledge to his “onwetende landgenoten” (ignorant compatriots). Such a man would settle as godsdienstleraar (religious teacher) — goeroe — and give instruction in the village prayer-house, known in Atjeh as the meunasah or rangkang. The Haddji title thus opened the way to the office of the religious teacher, and the office of the religious teacher was, in turn, the point of entry into the personnel of the mosque and, potentially, into the class of the oelama’s.

It is in connection with the diversion of the zakaat as a war-chest during the Atjehoorlog that Mellema records the political significance of the Haddji title in Atjeh. The oelama’s who, during the Atjehoorlog, acted as zakaatinner (zakaat-collectors) and formed a particuliere krijgskas (private war-chest) from which they paid their followers, thereby gained “een persoonlijk overwicht op de bevolking” (a personal ascendancy over the population) and “groter invloed … dan de officiele hoofden bezatten” (greater influence than the official chiefs — the uleebalangs — possessed). The ascendancy so gained was further strengthened when the oelama could in addition assume the title of Haddji: “Wanneer zij dan daarenboven nog de titel van Haddji konden aannemen, omdat zij een tocht naar Mekka hadden volbracht, kon dit slechts het aanzien, dat zij in de ogen van het volk genoten, verhogen.” The Haddji title is thus, in Mellema’s account, the religious-cultural complement to the fiscal-military base supplied by the zakaat: together, the two made the oelama’s the effective rivals of the uleebalangs in the society of wartime Atjeh. The Haddji title’s prestige is treated at length in Haddji title prestige in Atjeh (Mellema 1947).

Account from Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (D. W. N. de Boer, 1931) — the hadj and the settlement of estates

A further, strictly legal, effect of the pilgrimage on Achehnese society was recorded by D. W. N. de Boer, a former chairman of Atjehnese moesapat and landschapsgerecht courts, in his survey of the customary law of the soil.

De Boer noted that division of an estate during the lifetime of the prospective testator — atra boeloeng — “komt in Atjeh zeer veel voor,” occurred very frequently in Atjeh, and that one of its principal occasions was the departure of a man for Mekka. With the possibility in view that he might die during the hadj, a Mekkaganger preferred to regulate his affairs beforehand. He feared that through sudden death or other circumstances he might not be in a position to draw up a proper wasiët (testament); and in any case he did not wish to run the risk that a disposition drawn up on the journey or in “het heilige land” — the Holy Land — would fail to be transmitted home, or would not be carried out according to his wish.

The same assignment in boeloeng took place in the case of great age of the prospective testator, or of such illness that he no longer dared reckon on being able to manage his goods himself again. After a safe homecoming from Mekka, or sufficient recovery from illness, such a disposition made during life was often undone again.

The pilgrimage thus left a direct mark on the Atjehnese law of inheritance: it was among the chief practical reasons why the adat of estate division before death remained vigorous alongside the written testament of Islamic law.

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.

De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java), by Drs. R. L. Mellema. Mededeling No. LXXVII, Afd. Volkenkunde No. 25. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Vereniging “Indisch Instituut,” 1947. “De haddj, de 5e zuil van de wet,” pp. 36–39; and “De zakaat, de 3e zuil van de wet,” pp. 34–36; and Register, s.v. haddj and haddji.

Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.

tags	event, religious-practice, pilgrimage, social, travel, colonial-administration, inheritance, adat, law
aliases	Hajj, Pilgrimage to Mecca, The pilgrimage, Achehnese pilgrims to Mecca, Haj, The hajj pilgrimage, Achehnese haj, Certificates for the haj, hadj, Mekkaganger

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