Ramadhan

Ramadhan (Achehnese Puasa, also Ramalân or Kamalang) was the ninth month of the Mohammedan year, observed throughout Acheh as the great month of fasting and nightly devotion. As the month of the most universal of all religious obligations, Ramadhan formed one of the great landmarks of the Achehnese year, preceded by the feast of kanduri bu in the preceding month of Sha’ban and followed by the ‘Id al-Fitr at its close.

The month-names and the place of Ramadhan

In the Achehnese calendar, the twelve Mohammedan months bore names which combined the Arabic with local Achehnese designations. The list ran: 1. Muleud (Mawlid); 2. Sapha; 3. Rabi’ awai; 4. Rabi’ akhé; 5. Jamat awai; 6. Jamat akhé (the “last free one,” as old-fashioned women called it, also Janado Akhé); 7. Rajab (the month of the kanduri apam, the kanduri of apam-cakes); 8. Sha’ban (the month of the kanduri bu, the kanduri of rice); 9. Ramadhan (Puasa, the fast); 10. Shawwal (Uroë raya, the feasting month); 11. Dul-qa’idah (Meuapèt, “pinched, shut in”); 12. Dul-hidjah (Haji, the month of the pilgrimage). Ramadhan was thus flanked by two feasts: the kanduri bu of Sha’ban, which prepared the faithful for the coming abstinence, and the great uroë raya of Shawwal, which celebrated its conclusion.

The beginning of the month and the ruya doctrine

According to the Shafi’ite school of Mohammedan law, the dates of the religious festivals should not be established by calculation, but the commencement of each month must be fixed by observation of the new moon. If, for example, the month preceding the fasting month should according to the reckoning number twenty-nine days, still the following day must not be regarded as the beginning of the fast, unless it was proved by witnesses in the manner prescribed by the law, that the new moon had been actually seen on the evening following the 29th day. If this observation of the moon (ruya) was not established by proof, the month must in spite of astronomy be regarded as a full one of thirty days.

The Achehnese departure from the ruya

Although all the Mohammedans of the Archipelago were Shafi’ites, the doctrine of the ruya was far from being universally observed. In many districts calculation (hisāb) was adhered to, though according to the teaching of that school it should only be employed for the indifferent affairs of daily life. It was only lately, Snouck Hurgronje notes, under the influence of Mecca and Hadramaut that the ruya had been more universally accepted. In Acheh, however, “calculation” was the method followed from the earliest times. The ulamas overcame the difficulty of a conflicting doctrine in the books of the law by the consideration that in these parts the atmosphere was only occasionally clear enough to allow of the new moon being seen on the first day of her appearance.

The sultan’s regulation

In the edicts of the sultans there was a regulation directing that the commencement of the fasting month in each year should be fixed by a council of the learned held on the last Friday of the preceding month. The date was then made known to the people by the firing of guns on the previous day. This was quite inadmissible according to the ruya doctrine, which required actual observation of the new moon on the evening of the 29th of Sha’ban; but the Achehnese sultans had long preferred the predictability of calculation to the meteorological uncertainty of observation.

There were in Acheh a few ulamas who were acquainted with some of the principles of Arabic astronomy (that of the Middle Ages), which they used as the basis of their calculations. But as a rule reference was only made to certain tables given in Malay books, without any regard to the way in which these tables were arrived at, or the necessity for correction of the errors in reckoning to which they gave rise after some lapse of time. Ramadhan was thus fixed in Acheh not by the eye of the faithful but by the table of the calculator—a local departure from the strict Shafi’ite rule that nonetheless secured for the great month of fasting a fixed and predictable place in the Achehnese year.

Additional account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Ramadhan (fasting month)

The fasting month (Achehnese Puasa, Arabic Ramadhan) was the ninth month of the Mohammedan year, during which all adult Mohammedans were bound to abstain from food, drink, and other specified gratifications between dawn and sunset. In Acheh the month, like the day, began at sunset, and its arrival was greeted by a great annual market and the slaughter of cattle that would supply households with cooked meat for the first weeks of the fast. Although the principal features of Ramadhan were fixed by the universal law of Islam, the Achehnese observance of the month had many distinctive features, including the peutamat daroh feast that concluded the meudaroih recitations, the noisy rateb meusa that succeeded it, and the various vows (ka’oy) that came due during the month.

The great slaughter and the annual fair

The approach of the fasting month was marked by the great three-days’ fair known as the uroë ma-eungang, opened in the Sultan’s time by the Sianta or royal proclamation. Live-stock were brought down from the highlands, sold in the bustling market, and slaughtered in bulk on the third day, so that every household might enter upon the fast with a store of cooked meat sufficient for the first weeks of abstinence. The fair was followed by the ma meugang—the great slaughter preceding the commencement of the fasting month—which also gave rise to vows of the ka’oy class: a parent desperate for the recovery of a sick child might promise to give “a kanduri of seven head of buffalo,” which were then purchased at the great slaughter and given as a present to the teungku of the village.

The fast and the nightly meudaroih

The Mohammedan law did not brook the most trifling breach of the prescribed abstinence: the smallest particles of solid or liquid food, or the smoke of tobacco or opium, entering the body between earliest dawn and sunset, made the fast day null and void and rendered it necessary to repeat it later on. As regards the breaking of the fast, each one might follow his own inclination, but it was considered sunnat (commendable) to take some food immediately after sunset, and equally so to have another meal before the break of day. This latter was called sawo (a corruption of the Arabic sahur) by the Achehnese. The nights of the Puasa in an Achehnese gampong were full of noisy merriment, especially among the young men in their own particular sphere, the meunasah. With this in view, these combined clubs and chapels were put into some sort of order at the end of Sha’ban—they were cleaned up (which they required only too much), the big lamp was brought out and hung up, and so forth.

After the conclusion of the traweh service in the meunasah, certain experts volunteered to recite passages from the Qur’an, endeavouring if possible to bring to a conclusion (tamat) once or oftener during the month the thirty subdivisions of the Book. This public recitation, called meudaroih, continued till about one o’clock in the morning, when the tambu of the meunasah began to sound as a warning that the time for the sawo meal was at hand. Where a party thus assembled together to recite the Qur’an, it was customary to celebrate the conclusion of the Sacred Book in somewhat festive wise, in the ceremony of the peutamat daroh.

Compensation and vicarious discharge

The neglect of one’s prayers and fasts during life created a debt of worship which the Shafi’ite school generally held could not be discharged by vicarious compensation. Some Shafi’ite authorities, however, took a more accommodating view, and permitted the payment of padiah (i.e. the fidyah) by the heirs of the deceased out of his estate as an imperative debt. In Acheh there were plenty of people who at their death left a considerable number of such neglected obligations unredeemed; and although the heirs’ covetousness was often equal to the cost, it sometimes occurred that padiah for neglected prayers and fasts was paid out of the estate, especially where the amount due could be fairly accurately fixed.

Vows (ka’oy) and the ma meugang

The fasting month also gave rise to a special class of vows. A parent might vow, in case of a child’s recovery from illness, to give “a kanduri of seven head of buffalo,” the buffalo being purchased at the ma meugang (the great slaughter preceding the commencement of the fasting month) and given as a present to the teungku of the village. The ma meugang thus served not only as the practical provision of meat for the month of abstinence but as the ritual occasion on which a wide range of vows came due. The completion of the fast, after the lapse of the month, was marked by the ‘Id al-Fitr, one of the two great feasts of Islam.

Additional account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Ramadhan (fasting month / puasa)

Ramadhan (Achehnese Puasa, Arabic Ramadhan) was the ninth month of the Mohammedan year, during which all adult Mohammedans were bound to abstain from food, drink, and other specified gratifications between dawn and sunset. In Acheh the month, like the day, began at sunset, and its arrival was greeted by the firing of seven shots from the Dalam and by the great annual fair and slaughter of cattle that supplied households with cooked meat for the first weeks of the fast.

The daily fast and its relaxation

The signal for the sawo

That none might miss the time for preparing and eating the sawo-meal, the great drum (tambu) in the chapels was beaten at intervals from 1 to 3 A. M. In the days of the sultanate an additional warning was conveyed by means of a cannon-shot (called sambang) fired about 4 A. M. to warn the people that “a white thread might now be told from a black,” as the text of the Quran has it — that is, that the time of the sawo had come to an end. The Achehnese afterwards applied the name sambang to the morning and evening guns fired by the Dutch garrison. The signal for the breaking of the fast at sunset was, on the first day, a volley of seven shots, the same number that announced the beginning of the month itself; on subsequent days the customary single shot was thought sufficient, and served as a signal for the universal bukah, the breaking of the fast.

The nights of the Puasa

The nights of the Puasa in an Achehnese gampong were full of noisy merriment, especially among the young men in their own particular sphere, the meunasah. With this in view, these combined clubs and chapels were put into some sort of order at the end of Sha’ban — they were cleaned up (which they required only too much), the big lamp was brought out and hung up, and so forth. After the conclusion of the traweh service, certain experts volunteered to recite passages from the Quran in the ceremony of the meudaroih, and the celebration of the conclusion of the Sacred Book gave rise to the peutamat daroh. The completion of the month was marked by the great feast of leubè raya (the ‘Id al-Fitr) and by the payment of the pitrah.

The beginning of the month

In the Achehnese calendar the commencement of the fasting month was not fixed, as the strict Shafi’ite rule required, by observation of the new moon (ruya), but by calculation. The sultans had issued regulations directing that the commencement of the fasting month in each year should be fixed by a council of the learned held on the last Friday of the preceding month, the date being then made known to the people by the firing of guns on the previous day. This was quite inadmissible according to the ruya doctrine, but the Achehnese sultans had long preferred the predictability of calculation to the meteorological uncertainty of observation.

Sources

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.

Een strijd in Atjeh (Een oogarts op het oorlogspad), door Mr. C. Graadt van Roggen, met een voorrede van den heer H. Wanting, redacteur Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg, uitgave van de Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934), p. 14.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897) and Een strijd in Atjeh (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering. 20260707_232246_DLP-54-Een_16de_eeuwse_Maleise_vertaling_van_de_Burda_van_al_Bu_s_i_ri_OCR.txt, pp. 29‑30.

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