C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze — cited by Voorhoeve in his apparatus criticus with the abbreviation vN — was a Dutch orientalist whose Leiden dissertation Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai: bijdrage tot de kennis van de Sumatraansche mystiek (1945) and the subsequent study “Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai” in BKI 104 (1948), pp. 326–370, laid the foundations for the modern study of the religious controversy of Acheh in the seventeenth century. His work is the principal channel through which the writings of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī against the Wujudiyyah of Shamsuddin of Pasai were made accessible to European scholarship before the 1955 edition of Raniri’s two Malay treatises.
The dissertation Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai
Van Nieuwenhuijze’s Leiden dissertation of 1945 — Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai: bijdrage tot de kennis van de Sumatraansche mystiek (“Shamsuddin of Pasai: a contribution to the knowledge of Sumatran mysticism”) — is the principal modern study of the Wujūdiyyah mystic Shamsuddin of Pasai and of the controversy between Shamsuddin and Raniri. The dissertation includes a brief translation of the section of the *Tibjān fī maʿrifat al-adyān* of Raniri in which the Wujūdiyyah are treated (pp. 206–213 of the dissertation), and a number of conjectures and notes on the text — recorded by Voorhoeve in the apparatus criticus of the 1955 edition with the abbreviation “vN.”
The 1948 study in BKI 104
Van Nieuwenhuijze’s 1948 study in BKI 104 — “Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai” — extends the work of the dissertation with the edition of two short texts and a portion of the *Tibjān* of Raniri. The portion of the Tibjān here edited is the section on the Wujūdiyyah (f. 47b = p. 93 to f. 57a = p. 112 of the Leiden facsimile) — that is, the section in which Raniri refutes the Kitāb al-Muntahī of Hamzah Pansuri and the Mirʾāt al-muḥaqqiqīn and Chirkah of Shamsuddin of Pasai. The study also includes a brief translation of the section (pp. 206–213 of the dissertation).
The reading Ḥarakah
Among van Nieuwenhuijze’s contributions recorded by Voorhoeve is the proposed reading Ḥarakah (“movement”) for the title of Shamsuddin’s Chirkah. The reading is recorded by Voorhoeve in the apparatus criticus ad pp. 108, 110, 111 of the *Tibjān* with the abbreviation “vN” alongside the lemma “Chirkah.” The reading Ḥarakah — if accepted — would situate the work in the technical Sufi vocabulary of the maqāmāt and aḥwāl, in which ḥarakah (“movement”) signifies the active progress of the mystic along the path, in contrast to sukūn (“repose”). The traditional reading Chirkah has no obvious Arabic or Malay analogue.
Significance
Van Nieuwenhuijze is the principal predecessor of Voorhoeve in the modern study of the religious controversy of Acheh in the seventeenth century. His dissertation and his 1948 study made the section of the *Tibjān* on the Wujūdiyyah — and with it the writings of Shamsuddin of Pasai — accessible to European scholarship. The conjectures and notes of his dissertation and his 1948 study are recorded by Voorhoeve throughout the apparatus criticus of the 1955 edition, where they appear with the abbreviation “vN.”
See Also
- Acheh
- Chirkah
- Hamzah Pansuri
- Kitab al-Muntahi
- Mir’at al-muhakkikin
- P. Voorhoeve
- Raniri
- Shaikh Shamsuddin of Sumatra
- Tibjan fi ma’rifat al-adyan
- Wujudiyyah
Source
C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze, Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai: bijdrage tot de kennis van de Sumatraansche mystiek. Leiden, 1945.
C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze, “Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai,” Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 104 (1948), pp. 326–370.
Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955, where van Nieuwenhuijze’s conjectures are recorded with the abbreviation “vN.”