The seumayang hajat (Achehnese, from the Arabic ṣalāt al-ḥājah, “service of [fulfilling a] need”) was a supererogatory prayer prescribed as the introduction to special supplications addressed to the Deity. It was one of the two alternative services by which the Achehnese marked the sanctity of the malam beureu’at — the night of the middle of Sha’ban — and it was observed, by the women especially, with much greater zeal than the alternative seumayang teuseubeh or service of praise.
Form of the prayer
A seumayang hajat consisted of two parts (rak’ah), the same number as a single cycle of the ordinary prescribed prayers. During the malam beureu’at three such prayers (thus comprising six rak’ahs) were sometimes offered up. Each of these had its particular motive — the first being for prolongation of life, the second for the necessary means of supporting life, and the third for a blissful end. The three supplications thus covered the chief anxieties of Achehnese life: length of days, sufficiency of livelihood, and a good death. They were offered as the introduction to special supplications addressed to the Deity, the seumayang hajat serving as the formal preparation for the private petitions that followed.
Place on the malam beureu’at
The night of the middle of Sha’ban was believed by all Mohammedans to be that on which 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, and that this tree was shaken during the night preceding the 15th of Sha’ban, 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, and beseeching him to blot out from his eternal book the calamities and adversity destined for the suppliant. Such a prayer was in Acheh only offered up by the special representatives of religion; the bulk of the adult males celebrated the night by a small and simple kanduri (kanduri beureu’at) in the meunasah of their gampong, while some held the seumayang teuseubeh or the seumayang hajat.
The women’s observance
The seumayang hajat was celebrated by the women with much greater zeal than by the men. They either performed the seumayang teuseubeh under a female imam, or the seumayang hajat each one for herself. The greater zeal of the women for the optional devotions of the great nights was a general feature of Achehnese religious life, and was matched by their greater attachment to such rites as the tapa vows and the visits to holy tombs. The provision for individual performance in the seumayang hajat — as opposed to the congregational character of the seumayang teuseubeh — made it peculiarly suitable to the private devotions of the women of the gampong.
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.