The Mo’lot Seumeulheueh — literally the “final Mo’lot” — is the Achehnese popular name for the fifth month of the Mohammedan year, Jumada al-awwal. As C. Snouck Hurgronje records in his calendar of Achehnese months, the name is given because this month, like the preceding Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-awwal, the third month), is specially dedicated to the commemoration of Mohammad’s birth. Old-fashioned women in Acheh also call this month Madika phon, “the first free one” — a name whose origin Hurgronje could not trace — and less commonly it is called Jamado-away, a direct Achehnese rendering of the Arabic Jumada al-awwal. The “Mo’lot” element in the name is the Achehnese form of the Arabic mawlid (birth), which in the Achehnese usage has been transferred from the birth of the Prophet itself to the months in which his birth is commemorated.
The commemoration of the Prophet’s birth is one of the chief features of the Achehnese religious year, and the maulud — the recitation, in rhyming prose and verse, of the birth and life of Mohammad — is observed with great ceremony. The fact that the commemoration is distributed across two months — Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-awwal) and Mo’lot Seumeulheueh (Jumada al-awwal) — gives the Prophet’s birth a peculiar prominence in the Achehnese calendar: it is not a single feast but a season, extending over two of the early months of the year and providing occasion for the slaughter of buffaloes, the assembly of the faithful, and the recitation of the maulud in mosque and house. The two months are distinguished as “first Mo’lot” and “final Mo’lot,” with the first, Rabiʽ al-awwal, being the more solemn and more universally observed.
The position of Mo’lot Seumeulheueh in the Achehnese calendar of months places it between Abdë Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-akhir, the fourth month) and Kanduri boh kayeu (Jumada al-akhir, the sixth month). The first four months of the Achehnese year are thus given over to the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth: Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-awwal) and Abdë Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-akhir) both take their names from the same root, and Mo’lot Seumeulheueh (Jumada al-awwal) is named as the “final” Mo’lot, the closing month of the season. The cycle of Mo’lot observances thus occupies a full quarter of the Achehnese year, and gives the early spring of the Mohammedan calendar its distinctive Prophet-centred character.
The Mo’lot Seumeulheueh, together with the Kanduri Bu of Shaʽban, is also mentioned by Hurgronje as one of the months “regarded as lucky” for the celebration of marriage. Together with Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-awwal) and Abdë Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-akhir), it is one of the four months specially chosen for weddings, and the 6th, 14th and 22nd days of the month are considered especially propitious. The association of the Mo’lot months with marriage is a further indication of the prominence of the Prophet’s birth in the Achehnese religious imagination: the same months which commemorate the birth of Mohammad are also the months in which new households are most fittingly established, and the blessing of the Prophet’s birth is thus extended to the blessing of the newly-wed.
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.