The Hasan-Husain festival is the commemoration of Hasan and Husain, the grandsons of the Prophet Mohammad, celebrated during the first ten days of Muharram — the month that in Aceh bears the popular name Asan-Usen in consequence — and marked especially, in its Indian and West-Sumatran form, by the procession of the tabut or talbit. The festival commemorates the martyrdom of Husain at Kerbela on the 10th of Muharram (Ashura), but in its popular form has enrolled the blameless Hasan in the band of martyrs alongside his brother, so that the festival bears the names of both. Snouck Hurgronje treats it in The Achehnese chiefly in connection with the Achehnese jeunadah — the ark-like bier in which the bodies of unmarried persons are carried to the grave — which takes its name, by a transfer of meaning, from the similar coffer used in the Hasan-Husain procession.
Wider observance
The most elaborate observance of the festival is found in Persia and the Shi’ite portions of British India. There the first ten days of Muharram are given over to dances and bonfires, dikrs with their mourning for the martyrs, wild frenzies in which the mourners gash their own bodies with knives, theatrical representations sometimes confounded with reality by the crowds of spectators — so that the actor who takes the part of the murderer of Husain becomes exposed to actual violence — and mad processions more reminiscent of a fair or carnival than of a funeral pageant. The absurd tales related of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela, are also of this popular Indian character; and, Snouck Hurgronje observes, no works of this sort are to be met with in any country closer to Arabia.
In different parts of Netherlands India, and especially on the West Coast of Sumatra (Padang, Bencoolen), the Hasan-Husain festival is celebrated on a smaller scale but in much the same manner as described in Jaffur Shurreef’s Qanoon-e-Islam. It has been thought that the festival was introduced along the sea-board by the sipahis (sepoys) who immigrated thither during the English domination. It is indeed possible that these natives of Hindustan may have had an influence on the manner of its observance. It is however probable, to say the least, that even previously to this a Hasan-Husain feast enjoyed much popularity both in Sumatra and elsewhere. Indeed, how else can we account for the fact that it is celebrated to this day in Trumon in the manner customary in the Deccan, that in Aceh the month is called Asan-Usen, and that the day Ashura — of which orthodox Islam takes but little notice — has in Java given its name Sura to the whole month of Muharram?
The procession of the tabut
The Hasan-Husain feast, as Snouck Hurgronje describes it, is observed by the Klings (the South Indian Muslims of the Straits Settlements) and the people of Padang by carrying round in procession a coffer called the talbit or tabut. The same name is given, in Aceh, to a similar coffer which is used to send yellow glutinous rice, with a certain amount of pomp, as a present on the occasion of the circumcision of the son of a relative or friend. The custom is one of the many traces of South Indian and Hadrami influence on the religious life of the East Indian Archipelago, and reflects the strong emotional appeal that the story of the martyrdom of Husain at Karbala has had upon Mohammedans of every school.
The Achehnese jeunadah
Although the Hasan-Husain feast is not a national Achehnese festival, its name and ceremonial have left a mark on Achehnese funeral practice. The Arabic word for the interment — janāzah — is corrupted by the Achehnese into jeunadah, but has with them taken on an entirely different signification from its Arabic original. If a child dies unmarried, and also sometimes in case of the death of young married people or women in child bed, the custom is to bear the body to the grave in a sort of ark, the frame of which is made of wood or bamboo, entirely surrounded by a cloth covering, over which are scattered flowers such as betelnut blossom, chempaka, melati, and so forth. This ark, which is usually prepared by the women, is called the jeunadah; after the burial it is laid on the top of the grave.
The same name is given to the talbit which is carried round in procession by the Klings and the people of Padang during the Hasan-Husain feast. The transfer of the name is an instructive example of the way in which an external Mohammedan usage has been adapted, in Aceh, to a quite different local purpose — the decoration of the graves of the young and unmarried.
The festival in Aceh
In Aceh the festival is reduced to its most modest form: the cooking of the kanji Ashura porridge, distributed by the gampong from one or two large pots, is virtually the only surviving observance. The name Asan-Usen, however, remains as evidence of the former wider reach of the festival. The contrast with the West Coast of Sumatra, where the festival retained its theatrical and processional character down to Snouck Hurgronje’s time, is the more striking: the same tradition that in Padang gave rise to dances, bonfires, and dikrs produced in Aceh only a household pottage and a popular name for the month.
Snouck Hurgronje does not include the Hasan-Husain feast among the festivals of the Achehnese calendar proper. The Mohammedan year of Aceh is opened by the kanduri Ashura of Muharram — a feast observed in some Mohammedan countries in connection with the Hasan-Husain commemoration — but the Achehnese observance of Ashura is detached from the Hasan-Husain mourning and transformed into a kanduri of its own. The Hasan-Husain feast proper is confined to the foreign Muslim communities — the Klings of Kuta Raja and the people of Padang origin — and the Achehnese who take part in it do so only as guests.
See Also
- Ashura
- Hasan and Husain
- Kanduri
- Kerbela
- Persia
- Padang
- Jeunadah
- Peusunat
- Maulud
- Tahlil
- Muharram
- East Indian Archipelago
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.