Mirah Sab (also called Meurasab) was a Muslim saint (wali) whose tomb lies buried at Nagore in British India (on the Coromandel coast of southern India). He is mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese as one of the holy personages to whom the Achehnese are accustomed to vow votive gifts.
The Achehnese, Snouck Hurgronje explains, frequently make vows to the Prophet, to individual saints, or to local holy men. When a gift has been vowed “to the Prophet, to the saint Mirah Sab or Meurasab (who lies buried at Nagore in British India) or even to Teungku Anjong, whose tomb is in Gampong Jawa,” the vow may be fulfilled by handing the promised object over to a teungku for his own use. The teungku in return has only to recite over the gift the appropriate formula of dedication. In this way the saint is honoured without the gift having to be transported to his distant shrine.
The inclusion of Mirah Sab among the saints to whom Achehnese vows are paid is a striking example of the religious and commercial connections that bound Acheh to the opposite coast of India. Nagore (Nagur, Nagapatnam) was, from early modern times, an important point of contact between the Muslim merchants of the Coromandel coast and the Malay-Indonesian world. The cult of its most famous saint, Shahul Hamid Nagori, was widely diffused throughout the Indian Ocean; in the Achehnese case, the saint known as Mirah Sab appears as a localised recipient of vows whose cult coexisted with that of more home-grown holy men such as Teungku Anjong.
Mirah Sab thus occupies a place in the calendar of Achehnese devotional practice alongside both the great figures of universal Islam — the Prophet himself, Abdul-Qadir Jilani — and the local saints whose tombs dotted the Achehnese landscape. His presence in this company is a reminder that the religious life of Acheh was not hermetically sealed within the Archipelago, but was fed by constant movement of pilgrims, merchants, and scholars between Acheh, Hadramaut, Mecca, and the Muslim centres of British India.
See Also
- Teungku Anjong
- Gampong Jawa
- Nagore
- British India
- Prophet Muhammad
- Abdul-Qadir Jilani
- Kanduri T’eungku Anjong
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.
Mirah Sab (also called Meurasab) was a Muslim saint (wali) whose tomb lies buried at Nagore in British India (on the Coromandel coast of southern India). He is mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese as one of the holy personages to whom the Achehnese are accustomed to vow votive gifts.
The Achehnese, Snouck Hurgronje explains, frequently make vows to the Prophet, to individual saints, or to local holy men. When a gift has been vowed “to the Prophet, to the saint Mirah Sab or Meurasab (who lies buried at Nagore in British India) or even to Teungku Anjong, whose tomb is in Gampong Jawa,” the vow may be fulfilled by handing the promised object over to a teungku for his own use. The teungku in return has only to recite over the gift the appropriate formula of dedication. In this way the saint is honoured without the gift having to be transported to his distant shrine.
The inclusion of Mirah Sab among the saints to whom Achehnese vows are paid is a striking example of the religious and commercial connections that bound Acheh to the opposite coast of India. Nagore (Nagur, Nagapatnam) was, from early modern times, an important point of contact between the Muslim merchants of the Coromandel coast and the Malay-Indonesian world. The cult of its most famous saint, Shahul Hamid Nagori, was widely diffused throughout the Indian Ocean; in the Achehnese case, the saint known as Mirah Sab appears as a localised recipient of vows whose cult coexisted with that of more home-grown holy men such as Teungku Anjong.
Mirah Sab thus occupies a place in the calendar of Achehnese devotional practice alongside both the great figures of universal Islam — the Prophet himself, Abdul-Qadir Jilani — and the local saints whose tombs dotted the Achehnese landscape. His presence in this company is a reminder that the religious life of Acheh was not hermetically sealed within the Archipelago, but was fed by constant movement of pilgrims, merchants, and scholars between Acheh, Hadramaut, Mecca, and the Muslim centres of British India.
See Also
- Teungku Anjong
- Gampong Jawa
- Nagore
- British India
- Prophet Muhammad
- Abdul-Qadir Jilani
- Kanduri T’eungku Anjong
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.