Coolsma was a Dutch lexicographer — almost certainly T. J. Coolsma, the author of a noted Sundanese dictionary and grammar — whose lexicographical work is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese as one of the printed sources from which Mr. van den Berg derived his knowledge of Javanese and Sundanese marriage customs. Coolsma’s dictionary thus takes its place in the small comparative literature on the marriage law and custom of Netherlands-India that Snouck Hurgronje was concerned to correct and supersede.
Citation in The Achehnese
The reference to Coolsma occurs in a passage in which Snouck Hurgronje is at pains to show that Van den Berg’s knowledge of Javanese marriage customs was derived, not from personal observation, but from a small set of printed works. “Mr. van den Berg”, he writes, “who clearly made his first acquaintance with these matters quite recently from Winter’s brochure and the dictionaries of de Wilde and Coolsma, draws therefrom the entirely [wrong conclusion]” — the conclusion being that the penghulu or official marriage-maker in Java “joins the couple in marriage, just as the Registrar does with us”. Snouck Hurgronje insists, against Van den Berg, that “in Java as in other Mohammedan countries the official as wakil or agent offers [the marriage contract]” — that is, he acts as the agent of the bride’s wali, not as the principal celebrant.
The point is of more than lexicographical importance. The whole tenor of Van den Berg’s account of Mohammedan law in the Indies is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s view, vitiated by his dependence on dictionary-entries and brochures rather than on first-hand observation; and Coolsma’s dictionary is named, together with Winter’s brochure and de Wilde’s dictionary, as the source of the misunderstanding. The same criticism recurs throughout Snouck Hurgronje’s long controversy with Van den Berg over the ta’liq, the conditional divorce, and other Mohammedan-law institutions of the Archipelago.
Place in The Achehnese
Coolsma’s dictionary is thus cited not for its own sake, but as a piece of evidence in the controversy over the sources and methods of comparative Mohammedan-law scholarship in the Indies. The citation is, however, characteristic of Snouck Hurgronje’s habit of acknowledging his sources — and his opponents’ sources — with precision. It also attests to the importance of Coolsma’s lexicographical work, which, whatever its limitations as a foundation for the study of Mohammedan-law custom, was sufficiently authoritative to be one of the three printed works on which the leading Dutch authority of the day was content to rely.
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.
Coolsma was a Dutch lexicographer — almost certainly T. J. Coolsma, the author of a noted Sundanese dictionary and grammar — whose lexicographical work is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese as one of the printed sources from which Mr. van den Berg derived his knowledge of Javanese and Sundanese marriage customs. Coolsma’s dictionary thus takes its place in the small comparative literature on the marriage law and custom of Netherlands-India that Snouck Hurgronje was concerned to correct and supersede.
Citation in The Achehnese
The reference to Coolsma occurs in a passage in which Snouck Hurgronje is at pains to show that Van den Berg’s knowledge of Javanese marriage customs was derived, not from personal observation, but from a small set of printed works. “Mr. van den Berg”, he writes, “who clearly made his first acquaintance with these matters quite recently from Winter’s brochure and the dictionaries of de Wilde and Coolsma, draws therefrom the entirely [wrong conclusion]” — the conclusion being that the penghulu or official marriage-maker in Java “joins the couple in marriage, just as the Registrar does with us”. Snouck Hurgronje insists, against Van den Berg, that “in Java as in other Mohammedan countries the official as wakil or agent offers [the marriage contract]” — that is, he acts as the agent of the bride’s wali, not as the principal celebrant.
The point is of more than lexicographical importance. The whole tenor of Van den Berg’s account of Mohammedan law in the Indies is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s view, vitiated by his dependence on dictionary-entries and brochures rather than on first-hand observation; and Coolsma’s dictionary is named, together with Winter’s brochure and de Wilde’s dictionary, as the source of the misunderstanding. The same criticism recurs throughout Snouck Hurgronje’s long controversy with Van den Berg over the ta’liq, the conditional divorce, and other Mohammedan-law institutions of the Archipelago.
Place in The Achehnese
Coolsma’s dictionary is thus cited not for its own sake, but as a piece of evidence in the controversy over the sources and methods of comparative Mohammedan-law scholarship in the Indies. The citation is, however, characteristic of Snouck Hurgronje’s habit of acknowledging his sources — and his opponents’ sources — with precision. It also attests to the importance of Coolsma’s lexicographical work, which, whatever its limitations as a foundation for the study of Mohammedan-law custom, was sufficiently authoritative to be one of the three printed works on which the leading Dutch authority of the day was content to rely.
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.