Mat Amin was the eldest son of the great Achehnese ulama Teungku Tiro (Muhamat Amin), and during his father’s lifetime acted as his chief panglima (military commander) in the war against the Dutch. He is the subject of an extended portrait by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese, where he is held up as a cautionary example of the way in which the religious authority of a great ulama could be transmitted, in degenerate form, to a son who lacked every quality that had made the father formidable.
Mat Amin, Snouck Hurgronje explains, “possessed no more religious learning as every person of ordinary piety requires to know, and was always distinguished by the title teungku as being the son of the great ulama.” As a matter of fact, however, he was “a guerilla chief and nothing else, and borrowed from the great authority which his father’s name everywhere inspired an influence which raised him to the position of chief panglima.” In this capacity he and his bands proved “a great burden to the people,” and his life was “in other respects also far from harmonizing with the teaching of his father.”
The most celebrated episode in the relations between father and son concerns the alleged poisoning of Teungku Tiro. During the last years of the latter’s life, Mat Amin lived openly with another man’s wife, and Teungku Tiro, to give him a severe lesson, forbade him access to his presence. This appears to have so enraged the young man that he brooded over some device to rid him of his tiresome father. When Teungku Tiro, while still in the full vigour of life, suddenly fell ill, he is said to have expressed the conviction that poison had been administered to him by some agent of his son. Notwithstanding this, he had Mat Amin summoned to his bedside when dying, and solemnly warned him to go to the devout ulamas for advice, and to forsake his evil ways. He seemed, however, to realise how little chance there was of his son’s ever proving his true successor in any respect.
After his father’s death Mat Amin gave the rein more than ever to his evil passions. He assumed the dress and manners of an uleebalang: while his father, in receiving distinguished guests, had always risen to meet them, the young man would remain sitting until they came up to him. “Even the Achehnese consider Mat Amin proud, ignorant and headstrong,” Snouck Hurgronje observes, “and when after his father’s death he gave the rein more than ever to his evil passions, the great body of the adherents of Teungku Tiro at once melted away.”
The case of Mat Amin is cited by Snouck Hurgronje as a typical instance of the structural fragility of charismatic authority in Acheh. The religious prestige of a great ulama could not be inherited; and the moment the personal qualities on which it rested were seen to be wanting, the movement collapsed. Teungku Tiro’s other sons — Teungku Beb (died 1900) and Teungku Mahidin (or Ma’ Et) — together with their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng (died 1901), much respected for his piety and learning, continued after Mat Amin’s death to do their utmost to maintain the collection of the sabil contributions in the dependencies on the North Coast; but, as Snouck Hurgronje notes in a translator’s bracketed addition, Great Acheh “no longer furnishes a field for the labour of these men and their fellows.”
Mat Amin himself was killed in action in 1896, when the Dutch troops captured the fortress of Aneu’ Galong. His death closed the brief and inglorious chapter of the son’s military career, and confirmed the lesson of his father’s dying warning.
Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)
Mat Amin — written by G. B. Hooijer as Mad Amin and Mad-Amin — was the son and successor of the oelama Teungkoe di Tiro and the principal leader of the Moslemin religious war-party in Groot-Atjeh during the years of the Dutch alliance with Toekoe Oemar, from whose territory he was expelled in 1893 and against whose bands the whole system of Dutch outposts described in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh was directed.
Succession to Teungkoe di Tiro
Hooijer recorded that Oelama Teungkoe di Tiro, the spiritual leader of the Achehnese in the holy war, had died at Anagaloeng lying on the gravestone that had been erected there for Kapitein Miseroy during the period of Dutch occupation, a morally and physically broken man whose influence with friend and foe had declined. Hooijer then reported, explicitly as hearsay — naar men zeide (“as it was said”) — that Mad Amin had poisoned his father in rage at the strictures the oelama had made upon his immoral conduct.
Expulsion by Toekoe Oemar
Before the alliance, Teukoe Oemar had shown himself willing to resist the geestdrijvers (religious zealots) by thrashing Mad Amin and his companions out of his own territory, and it was precisely this demonstration that persuaded the Dutch that Oemar’s kerfstok might be overlooked and his services employed.
The struggle in the XXVI and XXII Moekims
When Oemar was set to clear the XXVI Moekims, fighters streamed in from the coastal lands to place themselves under Mad Amin’s command, including a party of two hundred from Samalanga under an opponent of the pro-Dutch Oeleebalang of that district. Oemar nevertheless dispersed Mad Amin’s bands entirely in November 1893 once Dutch troops had occupied Tjot Rang to cover his rest. By the time the Dutch built their benteng at Anagaloeng, Hooijer could write that Mad Amin had been driven out of both the XXII Moekims and the XXVI Moekims, and that Dutch soldiers were quartered in den navel van het land — “in the navel of the country,” as the Achehnese called Anagaloeng, the granary of the XXII Moekims.
Continuing threat
The expulsion was not final. In March 1895 Dutch troops at Tjot Goeë came under heavy fire from kwaad volk gathering in the IX Moekims, and in 1896 the Moslemin returned in force wherever Achehnese auxiliaries withdrew. Hooijer observed that when Toekoe Nja Banta transferred the women of T. Tjoet Toengkoeb from the Toengkoeb district to Lamreng inside the geconcentreerde linie, and the population consequently dispersed, the Moslemin immediately occupied the abandoned terrain and cut communications between Kroeng Kali and Toengkoeb.
Significance
Mat Amin represented, in Hooijer’s account, the continuity of the religious resistance from his father’s generation into the alliance period, and the reason for which the Dutch judged an Achehnese auxiliary indispensable. That the Moslemin under his leadership could be driven from a district but not destroyed was the structural weakness of the whole outpost system, which Hooijer conceded had been raised op ondeugdelijken grondslag.
See Also
- Teungku Tiro (Muhamat Amin)
- Teungku Tiro
- Teungku Beb
- Teungku Mahidin
- Teungku Chot Plieng
- Tiro
- Capture of Aneu’ Galong fortress
- Acheh War
- Sabil contributions (lui sabi aqq sabil)
- Holy War (Jihad) against the Dutch
- Death of Teungku Tiro
- Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro
- Teukoe Oemar
- Moslemin
- Anagaloeng
- Sagi der XXVI Moekims
- XXII Moekims
- Prang sabi
- Samalanga
Sources
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.
Mat Amin was the eldest son of the great Achehnese ulama Teungku Tiro (Muhamat Amin), and during his father’s lifetime acted as his chief panglima (military commander) in the war against the Dutch. He is the subject of an extended portrait by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese, where he is held up as a cautionary example of the way in which the religious authority of a great ulama could be transmitted, in degenerate form, to a son who lacked every quality that had made the father formidable.
Mat Amin, Snouck Hurgronje explains, “possessed no more religious learning as every person of ordinary piety requires to know, and was always distinguished by the title teungku as being the son of the great ulama.” As a matter of fact, however, he was “a guerilla chief and nothing else, and borrowed from the great authority which his father’s name everywhere inspired an influence which raised him to the position of chief panglima.” In this capacity he and his bands proved “a great burden to the people,” and his life was “in other respects also far from harmonizing with the teaching of his father.”
The most celebrated episode in the relations between father and son concerns the alleged poisoning of Teungku Tiro. During the last years of the latter’s life, Mat Amin lived openly with another man’s wife, and Teungku Tiro, to give him a severe lesson, forbade him access to his presence. This appears to have so enraged the young man that he brooded over some device to rid him of his tiresome father. When Teungku Tiro, while still in the full vigour of life, suddenly fell ill, he is said to have expressed the conviction that poison had been administered to him by some agent of his son. Notwithstanding this, he had Mat Amin summoned to his bedside when dying, and solemnly warned him to go to the devout ulamas for advice, and to forsake his evil ways. He seemed, however, to realise how little chance there was of his son’s ever proving his true successor in any respect.
After his father’s death Mat Amin gave the rein more than ever to his evil passions. He assumed the dress and manners of an uleebalang: while his father, in receiving distinguished guests, had always risen to meet them, the young man would remain sitting until they came up to him. “Even the Achehnese consider Mat Amin proud, ignorant and headstrong,” Snouck Hurgronje observes, “and when after his father’s death he gave the rein more than ever to his evil passions, the great body of the adherents of Teungku Tiro at once melted away.”
The case of Mat Amin is cited by Snouck Hurgronje as a typical instance of the structural fragility of charismatic authority in Acheh. The religious prestige of a great ulama could not be inherited; and the moment the personal qualities on which it rested were seen to be wanting, the movement collapsed. Teungku Tiro’s other sons — Teungku Beb (died 1900) and Teungku Mahidin (or Ma’ Et) — together with their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng (died 1901), much respected for his piety and learning, continued after Mat Amin’s death to do their utmost to maintain the collection of the sabil contributions in the dependencies on the North Coast; but, as Snouck Hurgronje notes in a translator’s bracketed addition, Great Acheh “no longer furnishes a field for the labour of these men and their fellows.”
Mat Amin himself was killed in action in 1896, when the Dutch troops captured the fortress of Aneu’ Galong. His death closed the brief and inglorious chapter of the son’s military career, and confirmed the lesson of his father’s dying warning.
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.
De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 9, 32, 34, 36, 48.
Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.