The two grandsons of Muhammad. Asan, king at Medina, was poisoned at the instigation of the infidel Yadib; his brother Usen succeeded him but was defeated and killed by Yadib at the plain of Akabala (Kerbela), most of his family dying for the faith.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Hasan and Husain
Hasan and Husain were the two sons of Ali (the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad) by Fatimah (the Prophet’s daughter), and thus the grandsons of the Prophet. In the devotional calendar of Acheh their names are perpetuated in the Achehnese designation of the month of Muharram as Asan-Usen — that is, Hasan-Husain — and in the popular Hasan-Husain festival which is celebrated in their honour throughout the Muslim world, including the Eastern Archipelago.
In Vol. I of The Achehnese they are mentioned in the chapter on burial customs. Snouck Hurgronje describes the Achehnese jeunadah — a sort of ark, made of wood or bamboo and entirely surrounded by a cloth covering over which flowers such as betelnut blossom, chempaka and melati are scattered, in which the bodies of unmarried children, young married people, or women who have died in childbirth are borne to the grave. After the burial the ark is laid on the top of the grave. In a footnote he adds that “the same name is given to the talnit, which is carried round in procession by the Klings and the people of Padang during the Hasan-Husain feast, and also to a similar coffer which is used to send yellow glutinous rice, with a certain amount of pomp, as a present on the occasion of the circumcision of the son of a relative or friend.” The reference is significant as an instance of the way in which the ritual objects of the Hasan-Husain festival — which commemorates the martyrdom of Husain at Kerbela on the 10th of Muharram (Ashura) — have entered, under the name of jeunadah, into the ordinary ceremonial life of the Achehnese.
The history of the two brothers is briefly sketched elsewhere in Vol. I. Husain, the younger, was killed at the battle of Kerbela (more properly, the massacre of Kerbela) on the 10th of Muharram by the Umayyads — an event commemorated in Shi’ite countries with an intensity of mourning which Snouck Hurgronje describes as belonging “specially to Persia and the Shi’ite portions of British India.” Hasan, the elder brother, “innocent as he was of all martyrdom, has been enrolled in this band of saints, and the Ashura-festival bears the names of both brothers.” This popular conflation of the two grandsons — by which the elder, who died a natural death, is made to share the martyrdom of the younger — is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s argument, a characteristic mark of the popular, semi-Shi’ite form of Islam which the Malays and Javanese inherited from the Deccan and the coastlands of southern India.
The Achehnese, though they are orthodox Shafi’ites, share in this devotional inheritance. The very name of their first month, Asan-Usen, is the Achehnese form of Hasan-Husain, and the Hasan-Husain feast is celebrated in Trumon “in the manner customary in the Deccan.” The two grandsons of the Prophet thus occupy, in the popular calendar and ceremonial life of Acheh, a place out of all proportion to the formal importance assigned to them in orthodox Shafi’ite law — a place which bears witness to the Indian channel through which so much of Achehnese popular religion has flowed.
The veneration of Hasan and Husain is, finally, only one instance of a wider pattern: the diffusion through the Eastern Archipelago of the romantic and devotional literature of Indian Islam, in which the two brothers figure alongside Amir Hamzah, Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah, Sam’un, and Raja Badar — all heroes of the popular Islamic romance-cycle whose stories, as Snouck Hurgronje observes, “are in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs.”
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.
Ḥusain (also Husayn or Hussein), the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad through his daughter Fāṭimah and his cousin and son-in-law Ali, is in the religious calendar and folk-lore of Acheh inseparable from his elder brother Hasan. Together they give their names to the Achehnese month of Asan-Usen (the first month of the Mohammedan year, Muharram) and to the Hasan-Husain Festival commemorated in the first ten days of that month. Husain’s martyrdom on the plains of Kerbela on the tenth of Muharram — the day of Ashura — is the central event of the Shiʿite calendar, and its echoes in Achehnese custom form one of the principal subjects of Chapter II of Vol. I. Ḥasan (also Hasan ibn Ali), the elder son of Ali and Fāṭimah and thus the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, is in the religious calendar and folk-lore of Acheh inseparable from his younger brother Husain. Together they give their names to the Achehnese month of Asan-Usen (the first month of the Mohammedan year, Muharram) and to the Hasan-Husain Festival commemorated in the first ten days of that month. Vol. I singles Hasan out for special notice on one curious point: though innocent of all martyrdom, he has been “enrolled in this band of saints” — that is, in the band of Kerbela martyrs — and the Ashura-festival accordingly bears the names of both brothers.
See Also
- Acheh
- Ali
- Amir Hamzah
- Asan-Usen
- Ashura
- Deccan
- Hasan
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Husain
- Jaffur Shurreef
- Kerbela
- Mohammad
- Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah
- Muhamat Napiah
- Padang
- Prophet Muhammad
- Raja Badar
- Sam’un
- Trumon
- Yadib
- Hasan and Husain
- Puasa (Ramadhan fasting month)
- Kanduri (general)
- Kanji Ashura
- Prophet Mohammad
- Sayyid Abdurrahman Zahir
- Teungku Anjong
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
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.
The two grandsons of Muhammad. Asan, king at Medina, was poisoned at the instigation of the infidel Yadib; his brother Usen succeeded him but was defeated and killed by Yadib at the plain of Akabala (Kerbela), most of his family dying for the faith.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Hasan and Husain
Hasan and Husain were the two sons of Ali (the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad) by Fatimah (the Prophet’s daughter), and thus the grandsons of the Prophet. In the devotional calendar of Acheh their names are perpetuated in the Achehnese designation of the month of Muharram as Asan-Usen — that is, Hasan-Husain — and in the popular Hasan-Husain festival which is celebrated in their honour throughout the Muslim world, including the Eastern Archipelago.
In Vol. I of The Achehnese they are mentioned in the chapter on burial customs. Snouck Hurgronje describes the Achehnese jeunadah — a sort of ark, made of wood or bamboo and entirely surrounded by a cloth covering over which flowers such as betelnut blossom, chempaka and melati are scattered, in which the bodies of unmarried children, young married people, or women who have died in childbirth are borne to the grave. After the burial the ark is laid on the top of the grave. In a footnote he adds that “the same name is given to the talnit, which is carried round in procession by the Klings and the people of Padang during the Hasan-Husain feast, and also to a similar coffer which is used to send yellow glutinous rice, with a certain amount of pomp, as a present on the occasion of the circumcision of the son of a relative or friend.” The reference is significant as an instance of the way in which the ritual objects of the Hasan-Husain festival — which commemorates the martyrdom of Husain at Kerbela on the 10th of Muharram (Ashura) — have entered, under the name of jeunadah, into the ordinary ceremonial life of the Achehnese.
The history of the two brothers is briefly sketched elsewhere in Vol. I. Husain, the younger, was killed at the battle of Kerbela (more properly, the massacre of Kerbela) on the 10th of Muharram by the Umayyads — an event commemorated in Shi’ite countries with an intensity of mourning which Snouck Hurgronje describes as belonging “specially to Persia and the Shi’ite portions of British India.” Hasan, the elder brother, “innocent as he was of all martyrdom, has been enrolled in this band of saints, and the Ashura-festival bears the names of both brothers.” This popular conflation of the two grandsons — by which the elder, who died a natural death, is made to share the martyrdom of the younger — is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s argument, a characteristic mark of the popular, semi-Shi’ite form of Islam which the Malays and Javanese inherited from the Deccan and the coastlands of southern India.
The Achehnese, though they are orthodox Shafi’ites, share in this devotional inheritance. The very name of their first month, Asan-Usen, is the Achehnese form of Hasan-Husain, and the Hasan-Husain feast is celebrated in Trumon “in the manner customary in the Deccan.” The two grandsons of the Prophet thus occupy, in the popular calendar and ceremonial life of Acheh, a place out of all proportion to the formal importance assigned to them in orthodox Shafi’ite law — a place which bears witness to the Indian channel through which so much of Achehnese popular religion has flowed.
The veneration of Hasan and Husain is, finally, only one instance of a wider pattern: the diffusion through the Eastern Archipelago of the romantic and devotional literature of Indian Islam, in which the two brothers figure alongside Amir Hamzah, Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah, Sam’un, and Raja Badar — all heroes of the popular Islamic romance-cycle whose stories, as Snouck Hurgronje observes, “are in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs.”
See Also
- Acheh
- Ali
- Amir Hamzah
- Asan-Usen
- Ashura
- Deccan
- Hasan
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Husain
- Jaffur Shurreef
- Kerbela
- Mohammad
- Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah
- Muhamat Napiah
- Padang
- Prophet Muhammad
- Raja Badar
- Sam’un
- Trumon
- Yadib
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
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.