Teungku Kutakarang

Properties2
tagsperson, ulama, religious-figure, jihad-leader, scholar, warrior, oelama, achehnese, religious, 19th-century
aliasesTeungku Kutakarang, Teungku di Kutakarang, Teungku Kuta Karang, Shaikh Abbas, Teungkoe Koetakarang, Nja Abbas, oelama of Aceh

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Teungku Kutakarang — in Kreemer’s spelling Teungkoe Koetakarang; real name Shaikh Abbas, also Nja Abbas; died November 1895 — was an eccentric Achehnese oelama active after the death of Tjhèh Saman in 1890, a leader in the holy war against the Dutch, the most persistent rival of Teungku Tiro in the direction of the religious party, and the author of the politico-religious pamphlet Tadkirat ar-rakidin (“exhortation to the inactive”) — in which he proposed fitting out a fleet of warships and was the first Achehnese to conceive of placing bombs beneath Dutch railway lines. Snouck Hurgronje describes him as “an active, clever but peculiar man,” whose perversity of opinion was as much a personal idiosyncrasy as a settled conviction. He lived in the neighbourhood of the tomb of the “pepper saint” Teungku Lam Keuneu’eun in the IX Mukims — at Lam Peuneu’eun in the onderafdeeling Lhö’ Nga — by whose miraculous power the pepper-plant was said to have originated in Acheh, and he delighted to call himself the servant of that tomb, drawing thereby the numerous gifts dedicated to it. Kreemer records that he was associated with Teukoe Oema, whose sudden defection (afval) in 1896 caused major upheaval in Dutch political and military policy.

Earlier career

Long before the coming of the Dutch to Acheh, Teungku Kutakarang had made himself conspicuous by his eagerness “to pose as the teacher of doctrines different from those of the majority of Achehnese ulamas.” He was always trying to entice away the disciples of others, and his decisions on points of law were of so strange a character that he was once banished from the capital in the sultan’s name. He figures in Vol. I as the author of one of the more remarkable Achehnese ethnological conjectures: the view that the Achehnese are composed of elements derived from three peoples — the Arabs, the Persians and the Turks. Though “he has absolutely no grounds for this absurd idea,” Snouck notes that those who looked up to him as a great scholar accepted his theory without hesitation.

Peculiar tenets

The war with the Dutch gave Teungku Kutakarang the opportunity, especially after the Dutch “concentration” policy, to try his fortune afresh. At first he worked under, or alongside, Teungku Tiro, to whom he found himself constrained now and then to pay public homage. In the circle of his intimates, however, he spoke contemptuously of the great man as Leube Saman — the same contemptuous “Leubè Saman” that Kreemer records — criticising his rules and decisions, and “certainly felt but little sorrow at the death of that honoured and dreaded ulama.” He differed from Teungku Tiro on a series of points, most of them trivial in themselves but magnified by mutual jealousy. Where Teungku Tiro taught that the prohibition of the Moslim law against the wearing of gold or silk applied also to combatants in the holy war, Teungku Kutakarang decreed the contrary — and carried his opposition so far as to insist that the warriors of Allah should wear gold and silk, so that the Dutch, finding these costly objects on the bodies of the slain, “might be dismayed by the wealth of Acheh which defied all reverses.” He taught, again in opposition to Teungku Tiro, that relations with those within the Dutch linie (the Dutch-controlled line around the capital) were not sinful but should be encouraged, since intercourse with the infidel gave opportunity to incite disaffection, to plunder and slay, and to retreat in safety. Unlike Teungku Tiro, he thus permitted his followers contact with Dutch-controlled territory to gather intelligence.

Perhaps his most singular tenet was that, under existing circumstances, the Friday service — universally performed in Arabic — should in Acheh be preferably celebrated in the Achehnese tongue. He also taught great forbearance for the faults of the combatants in the holy war, proving by examples from sacred tradition and history that many sins were forgiven them in consideration of their noble work. The fighting men who lodged with him were treated as distinguished guests: contrary to Achehnese custom they sat at table upon chairs, and water was set before them in glasses in place of brass drinking-vessels.

The Tadj-oel-moelk and the Tadkirat ar-rakidin

Teungku Kutakarang was the author of two distinct works of politico-religious instruction.

The first, the Tadj-oel-moelk (also Taj-ul-mulk) — a 141-page compilation in Atjèhnese-popular Malay, containing chronology, astrology (èleumèë noedjöm), medical recipes, and magical formulas — was written at the instance of Sultan Mantsoer Sjah (1838–1870). Its full title translates as “Rijkskroon, ingezet met allerlei geordende parelen en edelgesteenten” (“Crown of the realm, set with all manner of ordered pearls and precious stones”), and it established his reputation as a scholar of the mystical tradition.

The second, the Tadkirat ar-rakidïn — Snouck Hurgronje’s Vol. I transliteration of the same Arabic title renders it Tadkirat-ar-rakinut, “exhortation to the inactive”; Kreemer glosses it as “Vermaning der stilzittenden” (“Admonition to the Sitter-Still”) — was an enlarged and amended edition of a number of politico-religious pamphlets already known in a narrower circle. The pamphlets invoked the tjab limöng — a magical seal that was part of the esoteric apparatus of resistance, linking oelama-authority with political-military action.

After Teungku Tiro’s death (December 1891), Teungku Kutakarang roused himself to greater activity and circulated the Tadkirat ar-rakidin widely. In the common Achehnese metre he proclaimed his principles, sought to rouse the people to better organization, and represented the Dutch as outcasts of humanity whose aim was the destruction of the countries over which they held sway. The sultan he hardly mentioned, employing only the similitude of the marriage of the sultans with the State of Acheh to remark that a bridegroom who will not lift a finger to save his bride from the stranger is unworthy of her. The collection of the sabil monies should, he insisted, be made by concerted arrangement, and a central treasury established — “of course with Teungku Kutakarang as its administrator” — in the neighbourhood of the theatre of war; provision should also be made for attacking the enemy by sea, and to this end he proposed the fitting out of a fleet of warships. The Tadkirat also contains the first Achehnese conception of placing bombs beneath Dutch railway lines — a tactical innovation that anticipated the later phases of the war.

The whole programme was rounded off with his favourite metaphor: the Achehnese were wasting themselves on “louse-questions,” while the “elephant” — the infidel invasion — went unheeded.

Withdrawal and death

After the submission of Teuku Uma to the Dutch Government — which Kreemer dates to 1893, though Snouck Hurgronje places the more famous submission of Teukoe Oema in 1896 — Teungku Kutakarang withdrew to a great extent from public life. He never came into contact with the Government, though in the last years of his life his friends succeeded in making the Dutch civil officers believe that this fanatic ulama had been transformed into an ardent advocate of acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Gompeuni. He died in November 1895 and was buried at Lam Peuneu’eun in the onderafdeeling Lhö’ Nga, which was also the burial place of Atjèh’s peperheilige (pepper-saint) Teungkoe Lam Peuneu’eun.

Significance

Teungku Kutakarang is significant in the Achehnese religious-political history recorded by Snouck Hurgronje as the most persistent rival of Teungku Tiro in the direction of the religious party — a rival whose tenets, ranging from the prohibition of gold and silk for combatants to the proposal of a warship fleet and railway-line bombs, ranged across the full spectrum of the politico-religious debate of the Atjeh-oorlog. The Tadkirat ar-rakidin is one of the more remarkable Achehnese politico-religious pamphlets of the war, and the proposal to fit out a fleet of warships and to place bombs beneath Dutch railway lines gives the pamphlet a tactical as well as a religious significance. Kreemer’s account, in turn, supplies the additional detail of the tjab limöng — the magical seal invoked in the pamphlets — and the association with Teukoe Oema, whose defection in 1896 caused major upheaval in Dutch political and military policy. Snouck Hurgronje treats him, in Vol. II of The Achehnese, as one of the most important religious-political figures of Acheh’s resistance to the Dutch.

See Also

Sources

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.

The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

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