Teuku Hakim was the hereditary holder of one of the three chiefdoms in the upper part of Daya, on the West Coast of Acheh. His title — Hakim being the Arabic word for “judge” — points, as Snouck Hurgronje explains, to the fact that its original bearer was charged with the administration of justice. Within living memory, however, the title had degenerated: by the close of the nineteenth century its holder was “nothing more than an ordinary dato’,” as the adat chiefs are generally called on the West Coast.
The case of Teuku Hakim is cited in The Achehnese Vol. I as one of the clearest examples of the degeneration of offices in the sultanate. A once-distinct judicial function had become purely territorial; the title survived as an hereditary dignity, but its connexion with the administration of Mohammedan law had been entirely forgotten. A parallel degeneration is noted in the case of the Pangulee Side of Meulaboh, who had undoubtedly been at one time an official under the chief of that place, charged with the task of making judicial enquiries, but was now in fact no more than the headman of Pulo U (vulgarly Simalur).
The same process of decay is traced by Snouck in the great central office of Teuku Kali Malikon Ade, whose ancient judicial title had similarly become the style of a hereditary territorial chief, and in the Keureukon of the III Mukims. In each case the Sultans of Acheh had so little control over the course of events in their dependencies that the offices they had created for the administration of justice had, in the course of generations, been quietly converted into personal possessions of the families that held them.
The three chiefdoms of upper Daya, of which Teuku Hakim was one, represent the typical West Coast political structure: a confederation of small hereditary rulers, each descended from a holder of some ancient office of the sultanate, but each in practice independent of both the sultan and the central adat of Great Acheh. The West Coast dependencies of Acheh, though nominally subject to the sultans, had in fact long since been left to manage their own affairs.
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.
Teuku Hakim was the hereditary holder of one of the three chiefdoms in the upper part of Daya, on the West Coast of Acheh. His title — Hakim being the Arabic word for “judge” — points, as Snouck Hurgronje explains, to the fact that its original bearer was charged with the administration of justice. Within living memory, however, the title had degenerated: by the close of the nineteenth century its holder was “nothing more than an ordinary dato’,” as the adat chiefs are generally called on the West Coast.
The case of Teuku Hakim is cited in The Achehnese Vol. I as one of the clearest examples of the degeneration of offices in the sultanate. A once-distinct judicial function had become purely territorial; the title survived as an hereditary dignity, but its connexion with the administration of Mohammedan law had been entirely forgotten. A parallel degeneration is noted in the case of the Pangulee Side of Meulaboh, who had undoubtedly been at one time an official under the chief of that place, charged with the task of making judicial enquiries, but was now in fact no more than the headman of Pulo U (vulgarly Simalur).
The same process of decay is traced by Snouck in the great central office of Teuku Kali Malikon Ade, whose ancient judicial title had similarly become the style of a hereditary territorial chief, and in the Keureukon of the III Mukims. In each case the Sultans of Acheh had so little control over the course of events in their dependencies that the offices they had created for the administration of justice had, in the course of generations, been quietly converted into personal possessions of the families that held them.
The three chiefdoms of upper Daya, of which Teuku Hakim was one, represent the typical West Coast political structure: a confederation of small hereditary rulers, each descended from a holder of some ancient office of the sultanate, but each in practice independent of both the sultan and the central adat of Great Acheh. The West Coast dependencies of Acheh, though nominally subject to the sultans, had in fact long since been left to manage their own affairs.
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.