Habib Teupin Wan — addressed in the submission-letter of the three great Atjehsche chiefs as Penghoeloe (Heer) Habib Abdoerrachman Teupin Wan, and called in the language of the Dutch soldiers “The Holy One” — was an Acehnese sayyid (descendant of the Prophet Muhammad), de afstammeling van de profeet, venerated as kramat (a living saint), who remained one of the principal religious figures of the Acehnese resistance to the end. He belonged properly to the VII Moekims Ateuë in Groot-Atjeh, but when the Kompeuni had done its great work there he withdrew to Keumala and later lived in the mountains near Tangsé. He was killed on 29 September 1911 by Schmidt’s brigade at the Aloeë Blang Djeuraloh, and his death, together with those of Tengkoe di Boekit and Tgk. Majet, closed the epos der Tiro-oelama’s.
The sayyid as saint
De afstammeling van de profeet, Habib Teupin Wan, die als een heilige werd vereerd. The phrase marks him as a sayyid — a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah. In Acehnese society such descent carried automatic religious prestige; and Teupin Wan’s prestige had ripened into active veneration. He was kramat — a living saint — from whom, by respectable report, there went out such great powers that the hand raised against him immediately stiffened. Prominent families sent him their sons to learn the recitation of the Koran. After the disappearance of great men like Habib Abdoerrachman el Zahir and Habib Samalanga, the title of paramount religious authority in the resistance had passed to him. He refused all contact with the Dutch bestuur and military, and never ceased to admonish the holding-fast of the holy war.
His son — Habib Tjoet, the little or younger Habib — was killed in the overval of 21 May 1910 by which the brigades of Schmidt fell upon the Tiro-oelama’s bende. After this the old Habib went his own way; earthly things had become small and insignificant in the light of the eternal.
The killing, 29 September 1911
In September 1911 the Hari Raja fell on the 25th, and some of the Habib’s men had gone into a kampong in Tangsé for the celebration. This leaked out; on 27 September a detachment of 30 maréchaussée’s under Schmidt marched out on the spurs of the returned followers of the Habib. On 29 September the colonne moved along a little river, the Aloeë Blang Djeuraloh, cutting a path along a densely grown slope, and came upon the Habib’s schuilplaats.
Beside the huts stood a group of fifteen Atjehers; at their head a greybeard, in one hand a kris and in the other a revolver. At his side stood men with a gun and a blunderbuss; the others were armed with klewangs. The bende had been alarmed by the flute-signal but had not fled. The old commander had weighed the matter for a brief moment, and in those seconds had measured out the term of his life. His choice was: to become sjahid. So stood the grey old man at the head of his men, head upright, eyes on the soldiers stepping out of the bushes — without a moment of hesitation; it was his men who began the fight, having devoted themselves with him to death. So fell Habib Teupin Wan, “The Holy One”, and with him eight others.
The oeléëbalang’s wife of Tangsé asked Schmidt, when he came back, how many dead and wounded the Kompeuni had received: “Zelfs geen enkele gewonde” — not even one wounded. The astonished woman answered: “Dan moet uw eleumeë wel heel sterk zijn, want de Habib was zoo machtig dat, als iemand maar met den vinger naar hem wees, diens hand verstijfde.” — “Then your eleumeë must be very strong, for the Habib was so powerful that, if anyone but pointed a finger at him, his hand stiffened.”
Significance
Teupin Wan’s significance is as the religious authority of the Tiriō bende — the saintly figure whose presence gave the band its charisma, and whose death stripped that charisma away. With the sayyid’s death in September 1911, only the young Tgk. Tjhi Maät remained of the whole Tiri bende. The doctrinal structure of the resistance — the patriarch Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro, the sons, the saintly sayyid — had been destroyed.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
He was so holy, du Croo recorded, “that the fingers of any man or woman who dared point at him grew stiff.” Among the dead of the same period were three scholars of great name and two well-known band-heads.
See Also
- Habib Abdoerrachman el Zahir
- Tengkoe Majet di Tiro
- Tengkoe di Boekit
- Tiro-oelama
- Schmidt
- Prang sabil
- Sjahid
- Kramat
- Tangsé
- Groot-Atjeh
- Keumala
- Colonne Schmidt campaign against the Tiriō Teungkoes (1910-1911)
- 1910
- 1911
- Aceh War
- H. N. A. Swart
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Atjeh
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “De colonne Schmidt.”
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia.
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter XI.