Sam’un — the Achehnese and Malay form of the name Samson — is the hero of popular Islamic romance, mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese among the favourite figures of the popular religious literature of the Eastern Archipelago. He is named, together with Amir Hamzah (the uncle of the Prophet), Mohammad (ibnu’l) Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), and Raja Badar, as one of the protagonists of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures whose stories “are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago.”
Snouck Hurgronje’s notice occurs in the course of his discussion of the Indian influence upon the popular Islam of the archipelago. The stories of these heroes, he observes, are “all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs”; it is “more particularly in British India that works of this sort are to be met with, nor is it possible that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia.” The conclusion he draws is that the popular Islam of the archipelago — in respect of its romances, its saints’ legends, and its festival customs — has been mediated chiefly through Hindustan, and only at second hand through the Arabic-speaking lands.
The figure of Sam’un is the Biblical hero Samson transplanted, by a familiar process of Islamic legend-mongering, into the cycle of the wars of early Islam. The transfer is typical of the popular romance literature of the archipelago, in which figures drawn from the Hebrew Bible, from the Greek Alexander-romance, from Persian epic, and from the early history of Islam are mingled without discrimination, and made to serve as champions of the faith against infidel enemies of every nationality. The long hair, the prodigious strength, the betrayal by a woman and the final destruction of the temple — all the familiar features of the Book of Judges — reappear, in the Malay and Achehnese versions, in a Muslim dress.
The mention of Sam’un is of interest less for any single Achehnese observance than for the picture it gives of the imaginative furniture of the Achehnese mind. The Achehnese, like other Muslim peoples of the archipelago, drew their popular religious reading from a body of romance literature that had taken shape in India and Persia; and the names of Sam’un, Raja Badar, Amir Hamzah and Mohammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah were as familiar to them as the names of the Prophet himself and his Companions. Such figures peopled the hikayat — the Malay and Achehnese recitations — that were read aloud in the meunasah and at private gatherings.
Such stories, Snouck Hurgronje proceeds, are not to be confounded with the more soberly transmitted legends of the Arab historians; they belong rather to the same class as “the absurd tales related of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela.” The Achehnese, who uniformly adhere to the Shāfiʿī school of Sunni jurisprudence, received this romance literature from India without enquiring closely into its conformity with Arabic tradition.
See Also
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.
Sam’un — the Achehnese and Malay form of the name Samson — is the hero of popular Islamic romance, mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese among the favourite figures of the popular religious literature of the Eastern Archipelago. He is named, together with Amir Hamzah (the uncle of the Prophet), Mohammad (ibnu’l) Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), and Raja Badar, as one of the protagonists of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures whose stories “are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago.”
Snouck Hurgronje’s notice occurs in the course of his discussion of the Indian influence upon the popular Islam of the archipelago. The stories of these heroes, he observes, are “all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs”; it is “more particularly in British India that works of this sort are to be met with, nor is it possible that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia.” The conclusion he draws is that the popular Islam of the archipelago — in respect of its romances, its saints’ legends, and its festival customs — has been mediated chiefly through Hindustan, and only at second hand through the Arabic-speaking lands.
The figure of Sam’un is the Biblical hero Samson transplanted, by a familiar process of Islamic legend-mongering, into the cycle of the wars of early Islam. The transfer is typical of the popular romance literature of the archipelago, in which figures drawn from the Hebrew Bible, from the Greek Alexander-romance, from Persian epic, and from the early history of Islam are mingled without discrimination, and made to serve as champions of the faith against infidel enemies of every nationality. The long hair, the prodigious strength, the betrayal by a woman and the final destruction of the temple — all the familiar features of the Book of Judges — reappear, in the Malay and Achehnese versions, in a Muslim dress.
The mention of Sam’un is of interest less for any single Achehnese observance than for the picture it gives of the imaginative furniture of the Achehnese mind. The Achehnese, like other Muslim peoples of the archipelago, drew their popular religious reading from a body of romance literature that had taken shape in India and Persia; and the names of Sam’un, Raja Badar, Amir Hamzah and Mohammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah were as familiar to them as the names of the Prophet himself and his Companions. Such figures peopled the hikayat — the Malay and Achehnese recitations — that were read aloud in the meunasah and at private gatherings.
Such stories, Snouck Hurgronje proceeds, are not to be confounded with the more soberly transmitted legends of the Arab historians; they belong rather to the same class as “the absurd tales related of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela.” The Achehnese, who uniformly adhere to the Shāfiʿī school of Sunni jurisprudence, received this romance literature from India without enquiring closely into its conformity with Arabic tradition.
See Also
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.