G. A. Herklots was the English translator of the Qanoon-e-islam of Jaffur Shurreef — the most important single European-language source then available on the popular Islam of the Deccan. The second edition of his translation, published at Madras in 1863, is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese (pp. 98–149 of Herklots’s edition) as a “very noteworthy and full description” of the popular Mohammedan festivals, and as a principal comparative source for the Achehnese Hasan-Husain and Ashura observances.
The Qanoon-e-islam and its importance
The Qanoon-e-islam — originally composed in Urdu by Jaffur Shurreef (pronounced, in Snouck Hurgronje’s note, Ja’far Sharif) — relates to “a non-Shi’ite people, the inhabitants of the coastlands of the Southern part of British India, whence the creed of Islam would appear to have made its first advances towards the Eastern Archipelago”. The Mohammedans of the Deccan, whose manners are portrayed in this work, are Shafi’ites, just like those of the Malay Archipelago, but their “national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences”. These adventitious additions to their creed were adopted, Snouck Hurgronje argues, by the Malay and Javanese converts “with just as much readiness as the fundamental truths of the Shafi’ite law or of the teaching universally accepted as orthodox”. Herklots’s translation thus opened to European scholarship the body of comparative material by means of which the Indian element in Indonesian Islam could be reconstructed.
Use in The Achehnese
The work is cited by Snouck Hurgronje at several points in his discussion of Achehnese festival customs. The Qanoon-e-islam (p. 144) is the source for the Indian parallel to the cooking of special viands on the Ashura day — compared with the khichri of Hindustan, the hubub of Cairo (per Lane), and the bubur sura of Java. The same work (pp. 122, 142) is also cited for the participation of Hindus in British India in the Hasan-Husain feasts, “pay[ing] vows to the holy relics paraded round on these occasions” — a detail that throws light on the porous boundary between Mohammedan and Hindu popular religion in the Deccan and on the analogous permeability of Achehnese festival practice to non-Mohammedan influence.
Place in the comparative apparatus
By translating the Qanoon-e-islam, Herklots placed at Snouck Hurgronje’s disposal a body of material comparable in importance to the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians of Lane or the Faith of Islam of E. Sell. Together, these works supplied the triangulation by which the customs of Acheh could be assigned their proper place in the wider geography of popular Islam.
See Also
- Jaffur Shurreef
- Edward William Lane
- E. Sell
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Ashura
- Kanji Ashura
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
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.
G. A. Herklots was the English translator of the Qanoon-e-islam of Jaffur Shurreef — the most important single European-language source then available on the popular Islam of the Deccan. The second edition of his translation, published at Madras in 1863, is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese (pp. 98–149 of Herklots’s edition) as a “very noteworthy and full description” of the popular Mohammedan festivals, and as a principal comparative source for the Achehnese Hasan-Husain and Ashura observances.
The Qanoon-e-islam and its importance
The Qanoon-e-islam — originally composed in Urdu by Jaffur Shurreef (pronounced, in Snouck Hurgronje’s note, Ja’far Sharif) — relates to “a non-Shi’ite people, the inhabitants of the coastlands of the Southern part of British India, whence the creed of Islam would appear to have made its first advances towards the Eastern Archipelago”. The Mohammedans of the Deccan, whose manners are portrayed in this work, are Shafi’ites, just like those of the Malay Archipelago, but their “national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences”. These adventitious additions to their creed were adopted, Snouck Hurgronje argues, by the Malay and Javanese converts “with just as much readiness as the fundamental truths of the Shafi’ite law or of the teaching universally accepted as orthodox”. Herklots’s translation thus opened to European scholarship the body of comparative material by means of which the Indian element in Indonesian Islam could be reconstructed.
Use in The Achehnese
The work is cited by Snouck Hurgronje at several points in his discussion of Achehnese festival customs. The Qanoon-e-islam (p. 144) is the source for the Indian parallel to the cooking of special viands on the Ashura day — compared with the khichri of Hindustan, the hubub of Cairo (per Lane), and the bubur sura of Java. The same work (pp. 122, 142) is also cited for the participation of Hindus in British India in the Hasan-Husain feasts, “pay[ing] vows to the holy relics paraded round on these occasions” — a detail that throws light on the porous boundary between Mohammedan and Hindu popular religion in the Deccan and on the analogous permeability of Achehnese festival practice to non-Mohammedan influence.
Place in the comparative apparatus
By translating the Qanoon-e-islam, Herklots placed at Snouck Hurgronje’s disposal a body of material comparable in importance to the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians of Lane or the Faith of Islam of E. Sell. Together, these works supplied the triangulation by which the customs of Acheh could be assigned their proper place in the wider geography of popular Islam.
See Also
- Jaffur Shurreef
- Edward William Lane
- E. Sell
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Ashura
- Kanji Ashura
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
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.