Teungku Chot Plieng was a kinsman of the celebrated Achehnese ulama Teungku Tiro (Muhamat Amin) and one of the small group of learned and pious men who, after the death of Teungku Tiro and the death in action of his son Mat Amin at Aneu Galong in 1896, continued the work of the religious party on the North Coast of Acheh. Snouck Hurgronje describes him as “much respected for his piety and learning” — a characterisation which, in the context of the later Achehnese War, marked him out as a man of more genuinely religious stamp than the military successors of Teungku Tiro.
The brief mention of Teungku Chot Plieng in The Achehnese Vol. I occurs in a footnote recording the fates of the descendants and kinsmen of Teungku Tiro. Together with the sons of Teungku Tiro — Teungku Beb (died 1900) and Teungku Mahidin, also called Ma’ Et — Teungku Chot Plieng “continued to do their utmost to maintain the collections of the sabil contributions in the dependencies on the North Coast.” The sabil contributions (lui sabi aqq sabil), being that portion of the zakat tax which was set apart for the holy war, formed the principal financial resource of the Achehnese resistance; their collection had to be carried out, after the collapse of organised resistance in Great Acheh, in the dependencies of the North Coast, where the influence of the Tiro house was still alive.
The deference paid to Teungku Chot Plieng for his personal qualities marks a distinction of some importance in the religious politics of the time. Teungku Tiro’s son and putative successor Mat Amin was, by contrast, a guerilla chief rather than a scholar, and one whose pride, ignorance and headstrong conduct had, in Snouck’s account, alienated the great body of his father’s adherents. The respect enjoyed by Teungku Chot Plieng — a kinsman rather than a direct descendant of the great ulama — is therefore an index of the manner in which the religious party continued to set personal piety and learning above mere kinship in the choice of its working leaders.
Teungku Chot Plieng died in 1901. By the time of his death, Great Acheh had ceased to furnish a field for the labour of the religious party; the collections of the sabil contributions, maintained through the exertions of Teungku Chot Plieng and the sons of Teungku Tiro, had become the principal surviving expression of the Achehnese holy war. The obituary character of Snouck’s mention — by which the deaths of Beb (1900) and Chot Plieng (1901) are noted in close succession — preserves the memory of a small but tenacious group whose disappearance marked the practical end of the Tiro tradition as an active force in the resistance.
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.
Teungku Chot Plieng was a kinsman of the celebrated Achehnese ulama Teungku Tiro (Muhamat Amin) and one of the small group of learned and pious men who, after the death of Teungku Tiro and the death in action of his son Mat Amin at Aneu Galong in 1896, continued the work of the religious party on the North Coast of Acheh. Snouck Hurgronje describes him as “much respected for his piety and learning” — a characterisation which, in the context of the later Achehnese War, marked him out as a man of more genuinely religious stamp than the military successors of Teungku Tiro.
The brief mention of Teungku Chot Plieng in The Achehnese Vol. I occurs in a footnote recording the fates of the descendants and kinsmen of Teungku Tiro. Together with the sons of Teungku Tiro — Teungku Beb (died 1900) and Teungku Mahidin, also called Ma’ Et — Teungku Chot Plieng “continued to do their utmost to maintain the collections of the sabil contributions in the dependencies on the North Coast.” The sabil contributions (lui sabi aqq sabil), being that portion of the zakat tax which was set apart for the holy war, formed the principal financial resource of the Achehnese resistance; their collection had to be carried out, after the collapse of organised resistance in Great Acheh, in the dependencies of the North Coast, where the influence of the Tiro house was still alive.
The deference paid to Teungku Chot Plieng for his personal qualities marks a distinction of some importance in the religious politics of the time. Teungku Tiro’s son and putative successor Mat Amin was, by contrast, a guerilla chief rather than a scholar, and one whose pride, ignorance and headstrong conduct had, in Snouck’s account, alienated the great body of his father’s adherents. The respect enjoyed by Teungku Chot Plieng — a kinsman rather than a direct descendant of the great ulama — is therefore an index of the manner in which the religious party continued to set personal piety and learning above mere kinship in the choice of its working leaders.
Teungku Chot Plieng died in 1901. By the time of his death, Great Acheh had ceased to furnish a field for the labour of the religious party; the collections of the sabil contributions, maintained through the exertions of Teungku Chot Plieng and the sons of Teungku Tiro, had become the principal surviving expression of the Achehnese holy war. The obituary character of Snouck’s mention — by which the deaths of Beb (1900) and Chot Plieng (1901) are noted in close succession — preserves the memory of a small but tenacious group whose disappearance marked the practical end of the Tiro tradition as an active force in the resistance.
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.