The Malam beureu’at (“night of the middle of Shaʿban”, known in the Deccan as Shab-i-barat and in Arabic tradition as Lailat al-Baraʾah) was the night preceding the 15th of Sha’ban, the eighth month of the Mohammedan year. The special sanctity of this night was believed in by all Mohammedans. It was supposed that on that particular night Allah determined the fate of mortals during the forthcoming year. The most popular idea was that there was a celestial tree of symbolic import, on which every human being had a leaf to represent him; this tree was shaken during the night preceding the 15th of Shaʿban, causing the leaves of all those who were to die during the coming year to fall.
In Arabia, many watched through a part or the whole of this night and offered up a prayer invoking Allah’s mercy, beseeching him to blot out from his eternal book the calamities and adversity destined for the suppliant. In Acheh such a prayer was offered up only by the special representatives of religion. Most of the adult males celebrated the night by a small and simple kanduri—the kanduri beureu’at—in the meunasah of their gampong. Some held during the evening a special prayer, the seumayang teuseubèh (Arabic ṣalāt at-tasābīḥ) or “service of praise”. All assembled for this service, and one of those present was chosen to act as imam. This prayer resembled in essentials all other ṣalāts, but was distinguished by the constant repetition of a certain tasbīḥ-formula in praise of the Creator, in each of the four parts into which it was divided.
Others performed, in place of this seumayang, what was called the seumayang hajat, prescribed as the introduction to special supplications addressed to the Deity. A seumayang hajat consisted of two parts (rak’ah). During the malam beureu’at three such prayers (thus comprising six rak’ahs) were sometimes offered up. Each had its particular motive: the first for prolongation of life, the second for the necessary means of supporting life, and the third for a blissful end. This kind of seumayang was, however, celebrated by the women with much greater zeal than by the men. They either performed the service of praise under a female imam or the “seumayang hajat” each one for herself.
The end of the 8th month, and in particular the three last days, was marked by an extraordinary activity owing to the preparations for the Puasa or fasting month. It was of old the custom in Acheh to fix the beginning of the fasting month by calculation; the efforts of Habib Abdurrahman and other zealots to introduce the ru’ya or actual observation of the new moon as the only lawful method met with little sympathy. In Pidie there had prevailed for many years a difference of opinion as to the determination of the commencement of the Puasa, resulting in quarrels between the various gampongs and actual discrepancies in their calendars. The three sagis followed the usage of the capital, where the first day of Ramadhan was made known so long beforehand that everyone could tell in advance what the last three days of Shaʿban would be—whether 27–29 or 28–30.
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.