Sabil contributions (Achehnese lui sabi, from Arabic ḥaqq al-sabīl, “the portion due for the path [of God]”) denote the portion of the zakāt tax set apart for the holy war, together with voluntary money contributions levied by the religious leaders of Acheh on behalf of the struggle against the Dutch. The institution is described at length by C. Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese in connection with the activities of the war-leaders (panglimas) and ulamas who organised resistance in the late nineteenth century.
Theology and Practice
The contributions rest on a recognised category of Mohammedan alms. The haqq sabīl — the share of the zakāt assigned to “those who fight in the path of God” — is one of the eight canonical heads of distribution of the alms-tax. In the Achehnese wars of resistance this classical category was revived and given fresh practical urgency. The most celebrated collector was Teungku Tiro, who “knew as well as anyone that money is the life and soul, even of the holy war,” and who pushed on with the utmost zeal the collections of the lui sabi. He urged all the chiefs at least to give him money contributions towards the good cause, even if they would take no personal part in the conflict. Whoever appeared inclined to refuse was subjected to a system of intimidation which, though violent in form, was still regarded as lawful.
Continuation by Successors
After Teungku Tiro’s death, the work of collecting sabil contributions was continued by his sons and kinsmen. Two sons of Teungku Tiro — Teungku Beb (died 1900) and Teungku Mahidin or Ma’ Et — together with their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng (died 1901), much respected for his piety and learning, continued to do their utmost to maintain the collections of the sabil contributions in the dependencies on the North Coast. As Hurgronje notes, however, Great Acheh no longer furnished a field for the labour of these men and their fellows.
Criticism and Discontent
The collection of sabil monies was not without its critics. There were many who desired to pursue in peace their normal occupations, and especially agriculture — “the prince of all bread-winning” — without being harassed by sabil-contributions or compelled to serve among the reserve of fighting men. There were many, too, who perceived the ambitious motives underlying the activity of the ulamas, and who complained that the war-leaders squandered the money subscribed for the war on purposes for which it was never intended. Critics pointed in particular to Teungku Kutakarang, who proposed a remedy: the collection of the sabil monies should be made by concerted arrangement, and a central treasury established (of course with himself as its administrator) in the neighbourhood of the theatre of war. Provision should also be made for attacking by sea the enemy’s ships.
The institution of sabil contributions thus stood at the junction of canonical Islamic almsgiving and Achehnese guerrilla finance — at once a religious obligation, a fiscal instrument, and a source of contention among the very leaders whose cause it was meant to serve.
Additional account from De Islaam in Indonesië (1947) — the zakaat as war-chest
Mellema, in his comparative ethnological survey De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java) (Amsterdam, 1947), records the same institution from the canonical-institutional side, framing it as a diversion of the zakaat (the third pillar of the Muslim law, the alms-tax) by the oelama’s of Atjeh — whom he glosses as “godsdienstleiders (eigenlijk: wetgeleerden)” (religious leaders, properly legal scholars) — into a private war-chest (particuliere krijgskas) during the Atjehoorlog. Mellema introduces the diversion in the course of his treatment of the canonical distribution of the zakaat among the eight classes of recipients, of which one class consists of the volunteers who fight, on their own account, for the defence or extension of the faith, and who therefore do not belong to the regular troops that draw pay from the government. He compares them to the underground resistance workers in the Netherlands during the German occupation — “We zouden ze kunnen vergelijken met de ondergrondse werkers in Nederland gedurende de Duitse bezetting” — a comparison that, in a work published in 1947, carries the immediate force of a recent and lived analogy.
It is in connection with this canonical category — the ḥaqq al-sabīl, the same head of distribution that furnishes the theological foundation for the lui sabi collections described above — that Mellema records the Atjehnese diversion:
“In Atjeh is gedurende de Atjehoorlog voor zulk ondergronds werk tegen Nederland de zakaat wel gebruikt door de oelama’s of godsdienstleiders (eigenlijk: wetgeleerden). Daardoor gelukte het hun door als zakaatinner op te treden, en op deze wijze een particuliere krijgskas te vormen, waarmee ze hun volgelingen betaalden, een persoonlijk overwicht op de bevolking te krijgen en groter invloed te verwerven dan de officiele hoofden bezatten.”
That is: in Atjeh, during the Atjehoorlog, the zakaat was used for such underground work against the Netherlands by the oelama’s. By this means it succeeded for them, by acting as zakaat-collectors and so forming a private war-chest with which they paid their followers, to gain a personal ascendancy over the population and to acquire greater influence than the official chiefs possessed. Mellema further notes that the ascendancy was reinforced when the oelama could in addition assume the title of Haddji — “Wanneer zij dan daarenboven nog de titel van Haddji konden aannemen, omdat zij een tocht naar Mekka hadden volbracht, kon dit slechts het aanzien, dat zij in de ogen van het volk genoten, verhogen” — a point treated in Haddji title prestige in Atjeh (Mellema 1947).
The distinctive contribution of Mellema’s account, beside the Snouckian narrative of Teungku Tiro and his successors given above, is the canonical-genetic framing: the diversion is presented not as a local Atjehnese invention but as the practical activation of a canonical category (ḥaqq al-sabīl) always present in the law of the zakaat. The German-occupation analogy is, likewise, a distinctive contribution of the 1947 survey, and one that could only have been made by an author writing in the immediate aftermath of that occupation. The account is recorded in the Register of the survey under oelama “(wetgeleerden in Atjeh)” — “legal scholars in Atjeh.”
See Also
- Teungku Tiro
- Teungku Beb
- Teungku Mahidin
- Teungku Chot Plieng
- Teungku Kutakarang
- Dutch War in Acheh
- Dutch Policy of ‘Concentration’
- De Islaam in Indonesië (Mellema, 1947)
- R. L. Mellema
- Oelama zakaat war-chest in the Atjehoorlog (Mellema 1947)
- Haddji title prestige in Atjeh (Mellema 1947)
- Holy war against the Dutch
- Oelama
- 1947
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.
De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java), by Drs. R. L. Mellema. Mededeling No. LXXVII, Afd. Volkenkunde No. 25. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Vereniging “Indisch Instituut,” 1947. “De zakaat, de 3e zuil van de wet,” pp. 34–36; and Register, s.v. oelama “(wetgeleerden in Atjeh).”