The tahkim is the authorization by a man or woman — especially a woman who has no wali (marriage guardian) at her disposal — of a hakam to act as wali for the conclusion of her marriage contract. The function of a wali thus selected bears the same name as that of an arbitrator in a dispute, hakam; the authorization to undertake the duty is the tahkim. Where there is no lawful authority according to Mohammedan ideas, or no official lawfully charged with the wali-ship of women who are without a wali, the tahkim is the only way of uniting a couple desirous of marriage; in Batavia, for instance, all such contracts are concluded in this way, since it is assumed that there cannot be in that town any legally appointed wali.
In strict theory the choice of a hakam is free, save that the person appointed should fulfil the requirements that the Law makes of the qadi. Where there is no legally recognised authority, however, the requirement of suitability for the office of qadi is no longer insisted on, and anyone may be appointed hakam who shows himself moderately fitted to perform the duties in the prescribed manner. The choice is, in most Mohammedan countries, a matter of convenience: the bride and bridegroom, by mutual consent, select as wali another than the official charged with this duty, and the chosen hakam is then empowered by them to contract the marriage on the bride’s behalf. In Java and elsewhere in the Netherlands-India this tahkim procedure is resorted to under the supervision of the pangulu or naib, who exercises the kuwasa kakim; in Batavia the pangulu in person concludes the marriages of all women who have no wali.
In Acheh the tahkim is habitually applied in the case of women without a wali, but subject to a characteristic restriction imposed by the adat: the choice of a hakam is limited to the teungku of the woman’s gampong. This limitation reflects the close relation, expressed in the Achehnese proverb “the keuchi’ is the father, the teungku the mother,” between the religious officer of the meunasah and the householders of his gampong. The teungku, who already performs the traweh prayers, recites the kanduri, gathers the pitrah and jakeuet, and instructs the children of the gampong in the Quran, becomes by virtue of his office the natural hakam of any woman in his charge who lacks an agnatic wali. There is thus no need for a separate class of “marriage-makers” such as the naibs of Java or the mosque-officers of other Mohammedan countries.
The restriction also accords with the matrilocal character of Achehnese marriage, by which the wife remains in her own gampong and the husband comes to her — a structure that likewise dispenses with the ta’liq-adat universal elsewhere in the archipelago. The teungku’s tahkim is one of the elements that bind Achehnese marriage-formation to the local religious community rather than to a centralised religious court, and it leaves the dissolution of marriage to be regulated by the same local officers, the teungku and the panglima sagi, rather than by written instruments or by the kali of the Sultan’s government.
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.