The first visit of Muhammad Djailani Hamid to Acheh between 1580 and 1583 is the first recorded link of the family of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī with the Achehnese court. The visit — narrated by Voorhoeve in his introduction to the 1955 edition of Raniri’s two Malay treatises — established the precedent by which a Gujarati scholar of Arab descent could seek his fortune at the Achehnese court, and was the immediate experience on which Raniri himself drew, more than half a century later, when he left for Acheh in 1637.
Background
The coastal towns of Gujarat in the late sixteenth century had a very international population. Ships regularly sailed thence to the Strait of Malaka; among the mercenary troops of the sixteenth century were “Javanese” — that is, in this context, Indonesians. The Malay language was certainly not unfamiliar in the harbour towns; and the family of Raniri — Indian Arabs of mixed blood, who maintained contact with the motherland by correspondence and study-journeys, and who stood in relation with Indonesia — had already, before 1580, formed some connection with Acheh.
The visit
Between 1580 and 1583 Muhammad Djailani Hamid — the uncle of Raniri — arrived in Acheh. He wished to teach logic, rhetoric, dogmatics, and the doctrine of duties (plichtenleer) — that is, the rational and practical sciences of the Islamic religious curriculum. He found, however, little interest: “er was slechts grote toeloop naar leermeesters in de mystiek” (“there was a great influx only for teachers of mysticism”). So the scholar sailed on to Mecca, to obtain the venia docendi as a teacher of mystical theology. Some years later he returned to Acheh, provided with the venia docendi, and then had great success.
Significance
The visit of Muhammad Djailani Hamid to Acheh in 1580–1583 is the immediate background to the arrival of his nephew Nuruddin ar-Raniri in 1637. Raniri, Voorhoeve records, “learned from the experience of his uncle”: when he himself left for Acheh he was thoroughly prepared. He knew the Bahasa Djawi, the Malay that was the language of the court in Acheh, and had already written two works in it, while a third was in progress. He had also penetrated into mysticism, having been initiated into the Rifāʿiyya of Ahmad Rifa’i by his shaikh Sayyid ʿUmar Bā Shaybān. The success of his uncle’s second visit — the visit on which the scholar returned with the venia docendi in mystical theology — established the lesson that Raniri was to put into practice in 1637: that an orthodox mystic of the Gujarati-Ḥadramī network could find a hearing at the Achehnese court, but only if he came as a teacher of mysticism and not as a teacher of the rational sciences. The visit also witnesses, before the Wujudiyyah of Hamzah Pansuri had reached its highest development, the dominance of mystical teaching in the religious life of the Achehnese court — a dominance that was to make the Achehnese reception of Raniri’s orthodox mysticism possible, and at the same time to require the suppression of the Wujūdiyyah that the dominance of mysticism had allowed to flourish.
See Also
- Acheh
- Bahasa Djawi
- Gudjarat
- Mecca
- Muhammad Djailani Hamid
- Raniri
- Raniri’s arrival in Acheh (1637)
- Rifa’iyah order
- Sajjid Abu Hafs Umar Ba Sjaiban
- Shaikh Shamsuddin of Sumatra
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Wujudiyyah
Source
Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §1 (“De auteur”), pp. 5–6.
G. K. Niemann, Bloemlezing uit Maleische geschriften 112, pp. 124 ff.