The Prophet’s uncle, known in Acheh as “Amdah,” whose grave on Mount Uhud near Medina is the first holy place mentioned in the Hikayat Soydina Amdah, recited by women during the rateb Saman. The legendary Amir Hamzah cycle of his deeds is popular in Acheh in Malay rendering.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Amir Hamzah
Amir Hamzah — more fully Hamzah ibn Abd al-Muttalib — was the uncle of the Prophet Mohammad and one of the early martyrs of Islam, slain at the Battle of Uhud. In the Eastern Archipelago, however, his name is best known not from the canonical tradition but from a vast romance-cycle that bears his name and that has long been a favourite among Malay, Javanese, and Achehnese readers. Snouck Hurgronje singles him out as one of the principal romance-heroes of Achehnese popular religious literature.
The romance of Amir Hamzah in the Archipelago
The stories which are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago, Snouck Hurgronje observes, are “of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures of Amir Hamzah (the uncle of Mohammad), the romantic adventures of Mohammad (ibnu’l) Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), of the hero Sam’un, Raja Badar and many more, all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs”. Such romances are encountered “more particularly in British India”, nor is it possible, he adds, “that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia”. Their diffusion in the Archipelago is thus a material witness to the formative influence that the Deccan — the Shafi’ite Mohammedanism of British India — exercised on Indonesian Islam.
Source and channel of diffusion
The romantic cycle of Amir Hamzah is one of the clearest instances of the Indian element in Achehnese literary and devotional life. Together with the parallel stories of Mohammad ibnu’l-Hanafiyyah, Sam’un and Raja Badar, it forms part of that body of “absurd tales” of Islamic heroes — comparable, in Snouck Hurgronje’s analysis, to the tales told of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela — which were carried into the Archipelago from Hindustan and there took root among the common people. The Deccan, whose Mohammedans are portrayed in the Qanoon-e-islam of Jaffur Shurreef (Englished by G. A. Herklots, 2nd ed., Madras, 1863), is the immediate source of this literary tradition: the Deccanese, like the Malays and Javanese, are Shafi’ites, but their “national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences”, and these influences they communicated to the converts of the Archipelago.
Later purification by Meccan orthodoxy
A later wave of orthodoxy, proceeding especially from Mecca, has “purified the Islam of the East Indies of sundry heresies, and among them of the Hasan-Husain feasts”. The romantic cycle of Amir Hamzah, however — being literary rather than ceremonial — proved harder to dislodge: it remained, at the time of Snouck Hurgronje’s writing, one of the favourite recitations of the Achehnese, and constitutes one of the principal channels by which popular Islamic legendary material has been preserved in the Archipelago.
See Also
- Ashura
- G. A. Herklots
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Jaffur Shurreef
- Medina
- Mohammad
- Mohammad (the Prophet)
- Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah
- Raja Badar
- Rateb Saman
- Sam’un
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.
The Prophet’s uncle, known in Acheh as “Amdah,” whose grave on Mount Uhud near Medina is the first holy place mentioned in the Hikayat Soydina Amdah, recited by women during the rateb Saman. The legendary Amir Hamzah cycle of his deeds is popular in Acheh in Malay rendering.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Amir Hamzah
Amir Hamzah — more fully Hamzah ibn Abd al-Muttalib — was the uncle of the Prophet Mohammad and one of the early martyrs of Islam, slain at the Battle of Uhud. In the Eastern Archipelago, however, his name is best known not from the canonical tradition but from a vast romance-cycle that bears his name and that has long been a favourite among Malay, Javanese, and Achehnese readers. Snouck Hurgronje singles him out as one of the principal romance-heroes of Achehnese popular religious literature.
The romance of Amir Hamzah in the Archipelago
The stories which are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago, Snouck Hurgronje observes, are “of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures of Amir Hamzah (the uncle of Mohammad), the romantic adventures of Mohammad (ibnu’l) Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), of the hero Sam’un, Raja Badar and many more, all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs”. Such romances are encountered “more particularly in British India”, nor is it possible, he adds, “that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia”. Their diffusion in the Archipelago is thus a material witness to the formative influence that the Deccan — the Shafi’ite Mohammedanism of British India — exercised on Indonesian Islam.
Source and channel of diffusion
The romantic cycle of Amir Hamzah is one of the clearest instances of the Indian element in Achehnese literary and devotional life. Together with the parallel stories of Mohammad ibnu’l-Hanafiyyah, Sam’un and Raja Badar, it forms part of that body of “absurd tales” of Islamic heroes — comparable, in Snouck Hurgronje’s analysis, to the tales told of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela — which were carried into the Archipelago from Hindustan and there took root among the common people. The Deccan, whose Mohammedans are portrayed in the Qanoon-e-islam of Jaffur Shurreef (Englished by G. A. Herklots, 2nd ed., Madras, 1863), is the immediate source of this literary tradition: the Deccanese, like the Malays and Javanese, are Shafi’ites, but their “national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences”, and these influences they communicated to the converts of the Archipelago.
Later purification by Meccan orthodoxy
A later wave of orthodoxy, proceeding especially from Mecca, has “purified the Islam of the East Indies of sundry heresies, and among them of the Hasan-Husain feasts”. The romantic cycle of Amir Hamzah, however — being literary rather than ceremonial — proved harder to dislodge: it remained, at the time of Snouck Hurgronje’s writing, one of the favourite recitations of the Achehnese, and constitutes one of the principal channels by which popular Islamic legendary material has been preserved in the Archipelago.
See Also
- Ashura
- G. A. Herklots
- Hasan-Husain festival
- Jaffur Shurreef
- Medina
- Mohammad
- Mohammad (the Prophet)
- Mohammad ibnu’l Hanafiyyah
- Raja Badar
- Rateb Saman
- Sam’un
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.