Teungku di Buket was a Sayyid of Acheh, “who also enjoyed a reputation for sanctity,” and who is chiefly remembered as the father of the half-crazy Habib kramat of the famous ‘Aidarus family and as one of the first pioneers, in conjunction with the lately deceased Raja of Idi, of the Idi district on the East Coast of Acheh. He thus belongs to two overlapping histories: that of the Sayyid families of Acheh, whose descent from the Prophet gave them an inherited prestige independent of office or learning, and that of the pioneer settlement of the East Coast, in which religious and commercial enterprise went hand in hand.
The Habib Kramat of the ‘Aidarus Family
Snouck Hurgronje places Teungku di Buket among the living representatives of Achehnese sanctity, alongside the more famous tomb of Teungku Anjong. The son of Teungku di Buket — a “half-crazy young man” — was regarded as a Habib kramat, a sanctified madman, in whom the inherited barakah of the ‘Aidarus lineage expressed itself in the form of mental disturbance. The fame of the family did not stop with the son: a sister of this “sanctified madman” was in turn so holy that her husband, after cohabiting with her once, became very ill and did not since venture to renew his marital rights. The case illustrates the curious way in which sanctity, in the Achehnese religious imagination, could be transmitted collaterally through a household and could attach itself to states — madness, illness, sexual abstinence — that would elsewhere be regarded as purely pathological.
Pioneer of Idi
In his civil capacity Teungku di Buket was, with the lately deceased Raja of Idi (vulgarly Edi), the first pioneer of that district. The East Coast of Acheh, of which Idi is one of the better-known ports, was developed in the nineteenth century by just such combinations of a Sayyid or other religiously prestigious figure with a local chief. The Sayyid brought commercial connections, often with the Malay Peninsula and Arabia, and a religious prestige that smoothed relations with the interior; the Raja brought territorial command and labour. Together they opened up a district which, by Snouck Hurgronje’s time, had become one of the recognised pepper and plantation ports of the East Coast.
The Sayyids of Acheh
Not by any means all of the Sayyids of Acheh were theologians or pandits. Most of them devoted themselves to trade or, in later generations, to agriculture; but they enjoyed none the less the customary reverence based on religious feeling, even where their life was far from exemplary. Teungku di Buket is a representative figure of this class — a man whose sanctity was inherited rather than acquired, whose activities were as much commercial and pioneering as religious, and whose household, in the next generation, continued to produce figures around whom the popular imagination could crystallise.
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 di Buket was a Sayyid of Acheh, “who also enjoyed a reputation for sanctity,” and who is chiefly remembered as the father of the half-crazy Habib kramat of the famous ‘Aidarus family and as one of the first pioneers, in conjunction with the lately deceased Raja of Idi, of the Idi district on the East Coast of Acheh. He thus belongs to two overlapping histories: that of the Sayyid families of Acheh, whose descent from the Prophet gave them an inherited prestige independent of office or learning, and that of the pioneer settlement of the East Coast, in which religious and commercial enterprise went hand in hand.
The Habib Kramat of the ‘Aidarus Family
Snouck Hurgronje places Teungku di Buket among the living representatives of Achehnese sanctity, alongside the more famous tomb of Teungku Anjong. The son of Teungku di Buket — a “half-crazy young man” — was regarded as a Habib kramat, a sanctified madman, in whom the inherited barakah of the ‘Aidarus lineage expressed itself in the form of mental disturbance. The fame of the family did not stop with the son: a sister of this “sanctified madman” was in turn so holy that her husband, after cohabiting with her once, became very ill and did not since venture to renew his marital rights. The case illustrates the curious way in which sanctity, in the Achehnese religious imagination, could be transmitted collaterally through a household and could attach itself to states — madness, illness, sexual abstinence — that would elsewhere be regarded as purely pathological.
Pioneer of Idi
In his civil capacity Teungku di Buket was, with the lately deceased Raja of Idi (vulgarly Edi), the first pioneer of that district. The East Coast of Acheh, of which Idi is one of the better-known ports, was developed in the nineteenth century by just such combinations of a Sayyid or other religiously prestigious figure with a local chief. The Sayyid brought commercial connections, often with the Malay Peninsula and Arabia, and a religious prestige that smoothed relations with the interior; the Raja brought territorial command and labour. Together they opened up a district which, by Snouck Hurgronje’s time, had become one of the recognised pepper and plantation ports of the East Coast.
The Sayyids of Acheh
Not by any means all of the Sayyids of Acheh were theologians or pandits. Most of them devoted themselves to trade or, in later generations, to agriculture; but they enjoyed none the less the customary reverence based on religious feeling, even where their life was far from exemplary. Teungku di Buket is a representative figure of this class — a man whose sanctity was inherited rather than acquired, whose activities were as much commercial and pioneering as religious, and whose household, in the next generation, continued to produce figures around whom the popular imagination could crystallise.
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.