Abdurra’uf of Singkel — in Kreemer’s spelling Abdoerraoef van Singkel, also Teungkoe di Koeala / Teungkoe di Koeala and Abdöra’öh (in Arabic sources Abd al-Ra’uf al-Singkili) — was one of the most important religious figures ever to have worked in Atjèh. Born in Singkel on the Westkust, he studied for more than twenty years at Medina, Mecca, Jiddah, Mokha, Zebid and Betal-faqih, sitting at the feet of some 15 masters. His principal guide was Ahmad Qushashi, and after Qushashi’s death his successor Molla Ibrahim gave Abdurra’uf permission to found his own school. He returned to Acheh after 1661 and taught there until his death, after which his tomb at the mouth of the Acheh river (hence his title Teungku di Kuala, “the master at the river-mouth”) became the holiest site in the land. He was an orthodox mystic and the introducer of the Sjattarijjah (Shattariyya) tarikat (Sufi brotherhood) in the Indonesian Archipelago.
Identification as “Teungkoe Siah di Koeala”
In Atjèhnese folk tradition, Abdoerraoef is identified as Teungkoe Siah di Koeala — the source of the hoekom (Islamic law, from Arabic hukm) in Atjèh, in contrast to the adat (customary law) which is attributed to Pöteu Meureuhöm / Sultan Iskandar Moeda. The folk saying goes: “adat is the older brother, hoekom the younger.” His title “di Koeala” (“at the river-mouth”) derives from his grave at the mouth (koeala) of the Atjèh-river. The further identification with “Abdurra’uf of Singkel” links him to the West Coast of Acheh, and especially to Singkel — an identification which has caused some to associate him with the great seventeenth-century ʿAbd al-Raʾūf al-Singkilī, the Shafi’ite jurist and exegete of Singkel who composed the celebrated Mirʿāt al-ṭullāb and other works.
The saint of earlier times
A saint of earlier times in Acheh, Abdurra’uf’s tomb long enjoyed the highest reputation in the country before being outshone in popular veneration by the more recent tomb of Teungkoe Andjöng in Gampong Jawa. Snouck Hurgronje names him in two distinct contexts in The Achehnese: as the saint whose tomb was formerly most honoured in Acheh, and as one of the two saints (alongside Teungku Anjong) at whose tombs Achehnese mothers commonly perform the vow connected with the ear-piercing of their daughters.
In his survey of the sayyids, saints, and ulamas of Acheh, Snouck Hurgronje notes that “the tomb at present most highly honoured in Acheh is that of Teungku Anjong in Gampong Jawa. It is the last resting-place of a certain Sayyid Abu Bakar bin Husain Bil-Faqih, and has completely outshone the more ancient tomb of Teungku di Kuala alias Abdora’oh (Abdurra’uf of Singkel) which enjoyed the highest reputation in former times”. The displacement of Teungku di Kuala by Teungku Anjong is one of several indexes of the growing importance of sayyid saints — those descended from the Prophet Mohammad — in nineteenth-century Achehnese religious life, a development closely associated with the rising influence of such figures as Habib Abdurrahman Zahir.
The grave and its cult
The tomb of Teungku di Kuala remained, however, one of the great pilgrimage sites of Acheh. In his account of the ear-piercing ceremony, Snouck Hurgronje observes that it is “more usual to take the girl in procession to a neighbouring holy tomb, so that the saint’s blessing may rest upon the act”. The mother often makes a vow (kaoy) that the ceremony shall take place at the tomb of some famous saint, “the most customary being that the ceremony shall take place at the tomb of some famous saint, such as Teungku Anjong or Teungku di Kuala”. On such occasions both men and women of the gampong are invited in great numbers, and a procession is formed to the sacred spot, escorted if possible by the gampong authorities (keuchi’ and teungku) and with the two traditional drums (geundrang) and a flute (sirné) leading the van. After the leubes have recited passages from the Quran followed by customary prayers, an animal is slaughtered and a kanduri held.
Kreemer records that the grave of Abdoerraoef was formerly the chief pilgrimage site of Atjèh, now overshadowed by the grave of Teungkoe Andjöng. A giant ray (paröë) near the grave is said to wreck vessels of those disrespectful to the saint. Pilgrims from Troemon and Langsa still visit the grave. The earlier importance of this site reflects Abdoerraoef’s stature as the introducer of the Sjattariyya tarikat.
Legends
Legends say that Abdoerraoef caught fish for his pregnant wife by travelling miraculously to Singkel — a distance of hundreds of kilometres — demonstrating the magical powers attributed to great saints. His servant or companion Sanoedi is also named in these legends.
The Sjattarijjah
The Sjattarijjah tarikat introduced by Abdoerraoef became one of the principal mystical brotherhoods in the Archipelago. Other tarikat’s known in Atjèh include the Naqsjibandija (Naqshbandiyya, called Na tjabandi in Atjèhnese), the Kadriah (Qadiriyya), and the Sammanïja — the latter known for its loud dzikr-exercises that gave rise to the sadati game.
Chief works
His chief work, the Umdat al-muhtajin, remains influential, and he also translated Baidhawi’s Quranic commentary into Malay. He is also identified in spiritual genealogies as being “of the tribe of Hamzah Pansuri,” despite Abdurra’uf’s own opposition to Hamzah’s pantheism.
Significance
Abdurra’uf of Singkel is, in the encyclopedia of Atjèh history, the principal orthodox mystic and the introducer of the Sjattarijjah tarikat in the Indonesian Archipelago. His tomb at the mouth of the Acheh river — the Teungku di Kuala — was for centuries the chief pilgrimage site of Atjèh, and its cult continued even after the rise of the sayyid saints displaced it from its primacy in the nineteenth century. The folk-theological pairing of his hoekom with the adat of Sultan Iskandar Moeda — “adat is the older brother, hoekom the younger” — places him at the foundation of the Atjèhnese legal-religious order, and Kreemer’s account of his legends, his Sjattariyya, and the rival tarikat’s of Atjèh completes the picture that Snouck Hurgronje had drawn from the side of popular veneration.
See Also
- Aceh River
- Ahmad Qushashi
- Gampong Jawa
- Habib Abdurrahman
- Hamzah Pansuri
- Kanduri (general)
- Mohammad
- Molla Ibrahim
- Sultan Tajul-alam
- Singkel
- Teungkoe Andjöng
- Sjattarijjah
- Adat
- Hoekom
- Tarikat
- Aceh
- Troemon
- Langsa
- 1661
- Teungku Anjong
- Teungku di Bitay
- Teungku di Buket
- Acheh
- Sultan Meukuta Alam
- Abdurra’uf of Singkel
- Kanduri
- XXVI Mukims
- Panglima Sagi
- Teuku Imeum Tungkob
- Teuku Chut Lamreueng
- Uleebalang
- Sjamsoeddin van Pasè
- Sultan Iskandar Moeda
- Aceh
- Atjèh River
- J. Kreemer
- 1922
Sources
The Achehnese, Vol. I and Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
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.
Cheh Abdora’oh, also known as Abdura’uf or Abdulra’uf and called by the Achehnese honorific Teungku di Kuala (“the Teungku of the river-mouth”), is an Achehnese saint (ulama) whose memory is intimately bound up with one of the most persistent popular confusions in Achehnese historical tradition. Many Achehnese, at the time of Snouck Hurgronje’s writing, attributed to him the introduction of Islam into Acheh, although it is “clearly established that this man lived no earlier than the 17th century” — many hundreds of years after the actual Islamisation of the country.
Teungku di Kuala Abdora’oh, known as “the saint of Singkel,” is one of the great saints of Acheh whose tomb is the goal of a popular pilgrimage. He is identified by Snouck Hurgronje with Abdurra’uf of Singkel (Teungku di Kuala alias Abdora’oh), the renowned Achehnese Sufi author of the seventeenth century, whose shrine at Kuala Singkel on the West Coast long enjoyed the highest reputation of any holy place in Acheh. By the early twentieth century, the tomb of Teungku di Kuala Abdora’oh had been outshone in popular veneration only by that of Teungku Anjong in Gampong Java; but it remained, in Snouck Hurgronje’s classification, one of the two pre-eminent saints’ resting-places to which parents vowed pilgrimages on behalf of their sick children.
Teuku Chut Oh was panglima sagi of the XXVI Mukims of Great Acheh at the time the traditional list of the “twelve uleebalangs, who appoint and dethrone princes” of Acheh was recorded. His personal name Oh is explained by Snouck Hurgronje as a short form of Abdora’oh, i.e. Abdurra’uf — one of the common Achehnese contractions of an Arabic Muslim name.
His name has come down to us chiefly through a footnote which Snouck appends to his discussion of the twelve uleebalangs. The Achehnese authorities on adat, in listing the traditional guardians of the sultanate, included the panglima sagi of each of the three sagis. The panglima of the XXVI Mukims at the time the list was recorded was, Snouck notes, one Teuku Chut Oh. The brief mention is valuable in two respects: it identifies a single historical holder of an office which was otherwise treated as a permanent institution, and it shows that the list — later so often quoted as a definitive statement of the Achehnese constitution — was in fact a snapshot of one particular moment in the history of the sagi.
The panglimaship of the XXVI Mukims was, in the years before the Dutch war, an office of declining importance. As Snouck observes, “the panglima of the XXVI Mukims had long been a person of small importance.” The real power in the sagi had passed to the Imeum Tungkob of the XIII Mukims Tungkob and to the chief of the IV Mukims Ateue’, whose authority according to tradition was much more considerable in earlier times than it was by the close of the nineteenth century. That a man bearing the abbreviated name Oh — a homely contraction in keeping with the unassuming character of his office at this period — should have been the holder of the dignity when the list was drawn up fits the general picture of a sagi in which the nominal chief had been outstripped by his subordinates.
The name Chut marks Teuku Chut Oh as a member of the Chut (or Ja/To’ Sandang) kawom, one of the three allied Achehnese tribes whose tribal chiefs (the panglima kawom) played so important a part in the regulation of blood-feuds. The occurrence of this clan-name in the style of the panglima sagi shows how completely the ancient tribal nomenclature had penetrated the territorial offices of the sultanate.
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798.