Shaikh Shamsuddin of Sumatra — in Voorhoeve’s text Sjamsuddin van Pasai, also Sjamsuddin Samatraʾr, in Kreemer’s account Sjamsoeddin van Pasè (Sjamsoeddïn as-Samatranï) — was the pantheistic mystic of Pasai who dominated the religious life of the court of Iskandar Muda of Acheh until his death in 1630, and the principal continuator of Hamzah Pansuri. He was the leading figure of the heterodox mystic tradition that flourished at the court of Sultan Iskandar Moeda (1607–1636). His conflict with the orthodox scholar Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï would later lead to the orthodox victory under Sultan Iskandar Thanï, who had Sjamsoeddin executed and the works of the heterodox mystics burned.
The continuator of Hamzah Pansuri
One of the best-known representatives of pantheistic mysticism in Acheh, Shamsuddin enjoyed much consideration at the court of Sultan Meukuta Alam (Eseukanda Muda) and died in 1630. He wrote commentaries on works of his predecessor Hamzah Pansuri “of Baros.” The *Tibjān fī maʿrifat al-adyān* of Raniri treats Shamsuddin of Pasai as the direct continuator of Hamzah Pansuri, and his works as forming, with those of Hamzah, the canon of the Wujudiyyah mysticism against which the orthodox reaction of Iskandar Thani was directed. The juxtaposition is significant: it establishes the textual genealogy of the Wujūdiyyah of Acheh, and places Shamsuddin within the school of Hamzah Pansuri.
Works cited by Raniri
The *Tibjān* of Raniri cites two works of Shamsuddin by name:
- The *Mirʾāt al-muḥaqqiqīn* (“The Mirror of the Verifiers”) — a Malay Sufi treatise setting out the doctrine of the unity of being in the form developed by Shamsuddin from the heritage of Hamzah Pansuri. Cited and refuted in the *Tibjān* at p. 108 of the Voorhoeve facsimile.
- The *Chirkah* (or Ḥarakah, as Van Nieuwenhuijze prefers to read it) — a Malay Sufi treatise cited in the *Tibjān* at pp. 108, 110–111.
The juxtaposition of the two works in Raniri’s polemic suggests that they were used in conjunction, and that Raniri treated them as complementary expositions of the Wujūdiyyah position that he sought to refute.
The controversy over the al-Insān al-kāmil
The *Jawāhir al-ʿulūm* of Raniri records that Shamsuddin of Pasai — Raniri’s Wujūdiyyah opponent — also appealed to the *al-Insān al-kāmil* of ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, but that he interpreted the text, in Raniri’s view, incorrectly. The *al-Insān al-kāmil* thus occupies a remarkable place in the controversy between Raniri and Shamsuddin: a work to which both orthodox and heterodox appealed, but which each read differently. The same work that supplied Raniri with his account of the Barāhima was, in Shamsuddin’s reading, a warrant for the Wujūdiyyah position that Raniri sought to refute.
The conflict with ar-Ranïrï and execution
When Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï returned to Atjèh in 1637, he found the court under Sultan Iskandar Thanï still influenced by Sjamsoeddin’s heterodox teachings. Ar-Ranïrï’s conflict with Sjamsoeddin — conducted through the Tibjān and the Jawāhir al-ʿulūm — led to the orthodox victory: Sjamsoeddin was executed by Iskandar Thanï (around 1630), and the works of the heterodox mystics — including those of Hamzah Pansoeri — were burned before the great mosque Beit ar-rahman.
Kreemer frames this conflict as a pivotal moment in the religious history of Atjèh — the triumph of orthodox Islam over the heterodox mysticism that had flourished under Iskandar Moeda. This orthodox victory shaped the subsequent development of Atjèhnese Islam and its institutions.
The modern study
The modern study of Shamsuddin of Pasai was inaugurated by C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze in his Leiden dissertation Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai: bijdrage tot de kennis van de Sumatraansche mystiek (1945) and in his subsequent study “Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai” in BKI 104 (1948), pp. 326–370. The dissertation includes a brief translation of the section of the *Tibjān* in which the Wujūdiyyah are treated (pp. 206–213 of the dissertation), and the 1948 study extends the work with the edition of two short texts and a portion of the *Tibjān* of Raniri (the section on the Wujūdiyyah: f. 47b = p. 93 to f. 57a = p. 112 of the Leiden facsimile). The 1955 edition of Voorhoeve gives, for the first time, a complete facsimile of the *Tibjān* and so makes possible a fuller study of Raniri’s polemic against Shamsuddin.
Significance
Shamsuddin of Pasai is the principal pantheistic mystic of the court of Iskandar Muda of Acheh and the principal continuator of Hamzah Pansuri. The Voorhoeve account of 1955 adds substantially to the picture drawn by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese by documenting the textual basis of Shamsuddin’s school: the *Mirʾāt al-muḥaqqiqīn* and the *Chirkah* are the principal surviving works of Shamsuddin, and the *Tibjān* of Raniri preserves, in its polemical citations, the only extended fragments of these works. The controversy over the interpretation of the *al-Insān al-kāmil* between Raniri and Shamsuddin is one of the principal documents of the religious controversy of Acheh in the 1630s. Kreemer’s account, in turn, situates the conflict within the larger political frame of Iskandar Moeda’s heterodox court and the orthodox reaction under Iskandar Thanï — a frame in which the execution of Shamsuddin and the burning of the heterodox works before the Beit ar-rahman mark the formal close of the Wujūdiyyah ascendancy at the Atjèhnese court.
See Also
- Sultan Iskandar Moeda
- Sultan Iskandar Thanï
- Noer-ad-dïn ar-Ranïrï
- Hamzah Pansoeri
- Beit ar-rahman
- Pasè
- Aceh
- Wujudiyyah
- Mir’at al-muhakkikin
- Chirkah
- Tibjan fi ma’rifat al-adyan
- Djawahir al-‘ulum
- al-Insan al-Kamil
- C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze
- P. Voorhoeve
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- 1630
- 1637
Sources
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.
Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §2a (“Inhoudsoverzicht”), pp. 9–10; §2c (“De secten”), p. 16; apparatus criticus ad pp. 108, 110, 111 of the Tibjān facsimile; and notes to the Jawāhir al-ʿulūm for Shamsuddin’s appeal to the al-Insān al-kāmil.
C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze, Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai: bijdrage tot de kennis van de Sumatraansche mystiek. Leiden, 1945.
C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze, “Sjamsu’l-Dīn van Pasai,” BKI 104 (1948), pp. 326–370.
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.