Teungku Chot Putu was an ulama of the III Mukims of Great Acheh who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, succeeded in attaining to a degree of authority over those mukims without parallel in their history. He is one of the most striking examples in Achehnese record of the manner in which personal piety, learning and severity could raise a man without office, and without any formal investiture of political power, to the effective headship of a territory.
The III Mukims (also called the Mukim Lhèe, “the three mukims”) enjoyed from ancient times a peculiar constitution. They were self-governing under their three imeums, who acted as a council and refused to allow fighting to be carried on within their territory; in cases of dispute between the imeums, the question was decided by the panglima of the XXII Mukims, within whose sagi the III Mukims lay. The III Mukims thus formed a kind of perpetual neutral zone, and the office of panglima or uleebalang over them, as a single ruler, was virtually unknown.
The only instance within living memory of the administration of these Mukims by a single ruler is that of Teungku Chot Putu. He succeeded, in the middle of the nineteenth century, in deriving from his piety, learning and severity such an overwhelming influence over the three imeums and their subjects, that, although not invested with any political power, he acted in fact as ruler of the Mukim Lhèe. Before his appearance and after his death these mukims were self-governing, yet held in due respect the tradition of their peculiar constitution.
Teungku Chot Putu’s authority did not, however, crystallize into a permanent uleebalangship. His son Cheh Chot Putu, though essentially a worldly man and no scholar, inherited some of the respect paid to his father, but his efforts at playing the role of uleebalang of the III Mukims were not crowned with success. The chiefs of the III Mukims reverted to their ancient federal constitution, and the personal authority of Teungku Chot Putu remained an episode — brilliant but transitory — in the long annals of that peculiar sagi.
The name of the III Mukims Keureukon now usually given to that district, coupled with the fact that a family resided therein, one male member of which enjoyed the hereditary title of Teuku Keureukon, points to the efforts made by the holders of that dignity to gain the supremacy there. Snouck Hurgronje treats this as another example of that same degeneration of offices in Acheh which he had traced in the case of Teuku Kali Malikon Ade — offices created for a definite purpose surviving as mere hereditary dignities long after their function had been forgotten. The brief supremacy of Teungku Chot Putu is, in this connexion, the more remarkable: it was a personal achievement, not an inheritance, and its failure to perpetuate itself contrasts instructively with the more enduring success of Teungku Hamba Alah in the XIII Mukims Tungkob.
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 Putu was an ulama of the III Mukims of Great Acheh who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, succeeded in attaining to a degree of authority over those mukims without parallel in their history. He is one of the most striking examples in Achehnese record of the manner in which personal piety, learning and severity could raise a man without office, and without any formal investiture of political power, to the effective headship of a territory.
The III Mukims (also called the Mukim Lhèe, “the three mukims”) enjoyed from ancient times a peculiar constitution. They were self-governing under their three imeums, who acted as a council and refused to allow fighting to be carried on within their territory; in cases of dispute between the imeums, the question was decided by the panglima of the XXII Mukims, within whose sagi the III Mukims lay. The III Mukims thus formed a kind of perpetual neutral zone, and the office of panglima or uleebalang over them, as a single ruler, was virtually unknown.
The only instance within living memory of the administration of these Mukims by a single ruler is that of Teungku Chot Putu. He succeeded, in the middle of the nineteenth century, in deriving from his piety, learning and severity such an overwhelming influence over the three imeums and their subjects, that, although not invested with any political power, he acted in fact as ruler of the Mukim Lhèe. Before his appearance and after his death these mukims were self-governing, yet held in due respect the tradition of their peculiar constitution.
Teungku Chot Putu’s authority did not, however, crystallize into a permanent uleebalangship. His son Cheh Chot Putu, though essentially a worldly man and no scholar, inherited some of the respect paid to his father, but his efforts at playing the role of uleebalang of the III Mukims were not crowned with success. The chiefs of the III Mukims reverted to their ancient federal constitution, and the personal authority of Teungku Chot Putu remained an episode — brilliant but transitory — in the long annals of that peculiar sagi.
The name of the III Mukims Keureukon now usually given to that district, coupled with the fact that a family resided therein, one male member of which enjoyed the hereditary title of Teuku Keureukon, points to the efforts made by the holders of that dignity to gain the supremacy there. Snouck Hurgronje treats this as another example of that same degeneration of offices in Acheh which he had traced in the case of Teuku Kali Malikon Ade — offices created for a definite purpose surviving as mere hereditary dignities long after their function had been forgotten. The brief supremacy of Teungku Chot Putu is, in this connexion, the more remarkable: it was a personal achievement, not an inheritance, and its failure to perpetuate itself contrasts instructively with the more enduring success of Teungku Hamba Alah in the XIII Mukims Tungkob.
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.