A Sultan of Acheh recorded in the register of Acehnese rulers compiled by Hurgronje, among the line of sultans whose reigns are documented with varying degrees of detail.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Badrudin Asem
Badrudin Asem — known also by the name Hashim, and identified by Snouck Hurgronje with Badrul Alam Syah — was a Sultan of Acheh whose undated edicts, preserved in sarakata form, deal with commercial and port regulations affecting different nationalities and merchandise, and with the collection and distribution of taxes. These edicts are among the documentary sources from which the institutional history of the Achehnese Sultanate can be reconstructed.
During his residence in Acheh, Snouck Hurgronje obtained copies of a number of sarakatas not included among those published by Van Langen. Among these were undated edicts of Sapiatodin, Amat Shah Juhan (the first prince of the latest dynasty), and Badrudin Asem (Hashim). All of these dealt with commercial and port regulations as affecting different nationalities and different kinds of merchandise, and with the collection and distribution of taxes; in some of them detailed customs-tariffs are preserved. These documents are identical in spirit and intention with those published by Van Langen, but they contain much more information as regards the ceremonial of court and festival, and the collection and disposal of taxes on imports, and are occasionally at variance with the latter as regards details.
The commercial and port regulations of Badrudin Asem’s edicts belong to the third class of “new elements” introduced by the Achehnese sarakatas — that is, regulations dealing with trade (then confined to the capital), the shares of certain officials established in the capital in the profits drawn from this trade by the king of the port, the court ceremonial, and the celebration of great religious festivals. These regulations, Snouck Hurgronje observes, are those which have had most significance in actual practice; they exercised, during the reign of their promulgator at least, some degree of authority over life and trade in the seaport town. To assert more than this, however, is “to go outside the bounds of probability and to come into conflict with unimpeachable data.” Perpetual dynastic struggles, the unstable character of the rulers themselves, the endeavours of chiefs and officials even in the capital to promote their own authority and profit, and the want of a proper machinery of government based on other principles than “might is right,” all combine to establish the fact that in the history of Acheh no period can be pointed out in which even these regulations affecting the capital have passed current as the living law of the land.
The edicts of Badrudin Asem are thus to be regarded less as evidence of an effective royal legislation than as records of the aspirations of the Sultanate at a particular moment of its decline. They show that the king of the port still claimed, in Badrudin Asem’s time, a regulating authority over the trade of the capital and over the division of its profits among his court officials; but they also show, by their concentration on commercial and ceremonial detail, how far the Sultan’s effective power had retreated from the interior of the country to the port-town itself.
The general tendency of Achehnese historical tradition is to refer all that has become customary law to the Sultans in general (adat poteu meuruhom) and to Meukuta Alam in particular. Badrudin Asem’s undated edicts, with their detailed customs-tariffs and port regulations, are among the few documents which preserve the name of an individual legislator of the later Sultanate.
See Also
- Acheh
- Alaedin Mahmut
- Amat Shah Juhan
- Jamalul-alam
- Princess Sapiatodin
- Shamsul-alam
- Sultan Meukuta Alam
- Van Langen
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.
A Sultan of Acheh recorded in the register of Acehnese rulers compiled by Hurgronje, among the line of sultans whose reigns are documented with varying degrees of detail.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Badrudin Asem
Badrudin Asem — known also by the name Hashim, and identified by Snouck Hurgronje with Badrul Alam Syah — was a Sultan of Acheh whose undated edicts, preserved in sarakata form, deal with commercial and port regulations affecting different nationalities and merchandise, and with the collection and distribution of taxes. These edicts are among the documentary sources from which the institutional history of the Achehnese Sultanate can be reconstructed.
During his residence in Acheh, Snouck Hurgronje obtained copies of a number of sarakatas not included among those published by Van Langen. Among these were undated edicts of Sapiatodin, Amat Shah Juhan (the first prince of the latest dynasty), and Badrudin Asem (Hashim). All of these dealt with commercial and port regulations as affecting different nationalities and different kinds of merchandise, and with the collection and distribution of taxes; in some of them detailed customs-tariffs are preserved. These documents are identical in spirit and intention with those published by Van Langen, but they contain much more information as regards the ceremonial of court and festival, and the collection and disposal of taxes on imports, and are occasionally at variance with the latter as regards details.
The commercial and port regulations of Badrudin Asem’s edicts belong to the third class of “new elements” introduced by the Achehnese sarakatas — that is, regulations dealing with trade (then confined to the capital), the shares of certain officials established in the capital in the profits drawn from this trade by the king of the port, the court ceremonial, and the celebration of great religious festivals. These regulations, Snouck Hurgronje observes, are those which have had most significance in actual practice; they exercised, during the reign of their promulgator at least, some degree of authority over life and trade in the seaport town. To assert more than this, however, is “to go outside the bounds of probability and to come into conflict with unimpeachable data.” Perpetual dynastic struggles, the unstable character of the rulers themselves, the endeavours of chiefs and officials even in the capital to promote their own authority and profit, and the want of a proper machinery of government based on other principles than “might is right,” all combine to establish the fact that in the history of Acheh no period can be pointed out in which even these regulations affecting the capital have passed current as the living law of the land.
The edicts of Badrudin Asem are thus to be regarded less as evidence of an effective royal legislation than as records of the aspirations of the Sultanate at a particular moment of its decline. They show that the king of the port still claimed, in Badrudin Asem’s time, a regulating authority over the trade of the capital and over the division of its profits among his court officials; but they also show, by their concentration on commercial and ceremonial detail, how far the Sultan’s effective power had retreated from the interior of the country to the port-town itself.
The general tendency of Achehnese historical tradition is to refer all that has become customary law to the Sultans in general (adat poteu meuruhom) and to Meukuta Alam in particular. Badrudin Asem’s undated edicts, with their detailed customs-tariffs and port regulations, are among the few documents which preserve the name of an individual legislator of the later Sultanate.
See Also
- Acheh
- Alaedin Mahmut
- Amat Shah Juhan
- Jamalul-alam
- Princess Sapiatodin
- Shamsul-alam
- Sultan Meukuta Alam
- Van Langen
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.