Teuku Seutia Ulama, also called by the people Teuku Siah Ulama — Siah being one of the Achehnese forms of the Arabic Shaikh — was the hereditary panglima of the XXV Mukims of Great Acheh at the time Snouck Hurgronje was writing. His official title, which translates as “Chief of the Learned,” lends weight to the conjecture that an earlier holder of the office may have distinguished himself by his legal learning, and so have fixed upon his successors a name recalling the religious origins of the house.
The present Teuku Seutia Ulama, however, was in person but little fitted to discharge the functions which his title implied. Snouck Hurgronje records that he had “occupied himself but little with the government of the district,” and for a long time past the power of some of the other uleebalangs of the sagi had put that of their nominal chief in the shade. The true potentates of the XXV Mukims were Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa, chief of the IX Mukims, and Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia, uleebalang of the Mukim Meura’sa (and in earlier times of the VI Mukims), and Teuku Nanta Seutia who had wrested the VI Mukims from the last-mentioned chief.
The case of Teuku Seutia Ulama is the more striking because the XXV Mukims stood, by ancient tradition, second to none of the three sagis in honour. The order of precedence of the three sagis on ceremonial occasions was always XXVI, XXV, XXII — a sequence fixed, it has been conjectured, according to the original number of mukims in each sagi, and once so established maintained unchanged even when the actual proportions of the sagis no longer corresponded with their names. The fact that the XXV Mukims should have been presided over in the late nineteenth century by a chief of so little personal weight shows how completely the ancient balance of the sultanate had been thrown out by the rise of the territorial uleebalangs.
The position of Teuku Seutia Ulama was also weakened by the manner in which the territorial power of the sagi had come to be distributed among a number of independent chiefs. The list of “twelve uleebalangs, who appoint and dethrone princes,” although it included the panglima sagi, is shown by Snouck to be at most a partial and idealized picture; in the XXV Mukims, the real authority had long since passed from the panglima to the Ne’ chiefs and to such ambitious intruders as the Nanta family.
See Also
- XXV Mukims
- Panglima Sagi
- Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa
- Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia
- Teuku Nanta Seutia
- Uleebalang
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 Seutia Ulama, also called by the people Teuku Siah Ulama — Siah being one of the Achehnese forms of the Arabic Shaikh — was the hereditary panglima of the XXV Mukims of Great Acheh at the time Snouck Hurgronje was writing. His official title, which translates as “Chief of the Learned,” lends weight to the conjecture that an earlier holder of the office may have distinguished himself by his legal learning, and so have fixed upon his successors a name recalling the religious origins of the house.
The present Teuku Seutia Ulama, however, was in person but little fitted to discharge the functions which his title implied. Snouck Hurgronje records that he had “occupied himself but little with the government of the district,” and for a long time past the power of some of the other uleebalangs of the sagi had put that of their nominal chief in the shade. The true potentates of the XXV Mukims were Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa, chief of the IX Mukims, and Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia, uleebalang of the Mukim Meura’sa (and in earlier times of the VI Mukims), and Teuku Nanta Seutia who had wrested the VI Mukims from the last-mentioned chief.
The case of Teuku Seutia Ulama is the more striking because the XXV Mukims stood, by ancient tradition, second to none of the three sagis in honour. The order of precedence of the three sagis on ceremonial occasions was always XXVI, XXV, XXII — a sequence fixed, it has been conjectured, according to the original number of mukims in each sagi, and once so established maintained unchanged even when the actual proportions of the sagis no longer corresponded with their names. The fact that the XXV Mukims should have been presided over in the late nineteenth century by a chief of so little personal weight shows how completely the ancient balance of the sultanate had been thrown out by the rise of the territorial uleebalangs.
The position of Teuku Seutia Ulama was also weakened by the manner in which the territorial power of the sagi had come to be distributed among a number of independent chiefs. The list of “twelve uleebalangs, who appoint and dethrone princes,” although it included the panglima sagi, is shown by Snouck to be at most a partial and idealized picture; in the XXV Mukims, the real authority had long since passed from the panglima to the Ne’ chiefs and to such ambitious intruders as the Nanta family.
See Also
- XXV Mukims
- Panglima Sagi
- Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa
- Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia
- Teuku Nanta Seutia
- Uleebalang
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.