Teungku Mahidin, also known as Ma’ Et, was a son of the great Achehnese ulama Teungku Tiro and, together with his brother Teungku Beb and their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng, one of the bearers of his father’s religious and political inheritance on the North Coast of Acheh after the elder Teungku’s death in 1891. He belongs to that second generation of the Tiro family whose collective task, after the collapse of their father’s supremacy in Great Acheh, was to keep alive the organisation of the sabil contributions on which the holy war against the Dutch depended.
The Sabil Contributions
Snouck Hurgronje’s footnote on the sons of Teungku Tiro records that Teungku Mat Amin — the eldest son and his father’s would-be successor as chief panglima of the resistance — was killed in action in 1896 when the Dutch troops captured the fortress of Aneu’ Galong. With Mat Amin’s death and the rapid melting-away of his following, the burden of maintaining the family’s prestige and the flow of sabil money from the dependencies fell upon his brothers. Teungku Mahidin (Ma’ Et) and Teungku Beb (who died in 1900) carried on this work in concert with their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng, who was much respected for his piety and learning and who survived until 1901.
The North Coast Field
By the close of the nineteenth century Great Acheh no longer furnished a field for the labours of these men and their fellows. The “concentration” policy of the Dutch, the submissions of many of the uleebalangs, and the dissipation of Mat Amin’s band had effectively closed the interior to the Tiro organisation. The North Coast dependencies — the East and West Coast districts through which the sabil contributions were still collected — thus became the principal theatre of their activity. There they continued, as Snouck Hurgronje put it, to do their utmost to maintain the collections of the sabil contributions, even after the focus of the resistance had shifted away from the capital.
Place in the Tiro Tradition
Teungku Mahidin is one of the comparatively shadowy figures of the Tiro family. Unlike his father, whose personality dominated the religious and military life of Acheh for more than a decade, or his eldest brother, whose arrogance and violent end are described in some detail by Snouck Hurgronje, Ma’ Et appears in the record chiefly as a faithful continuer of his father’s work. His importance lies in the fact that, at the moment when the Tiro influence in Great Acheh had been broken, he and his remaining kinsmen were able to keep the channel of religious-tax contributions open along the North Coast, and so to prolong, for a few more years, the material basis of the Achehnese 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 Mahidin, also known as Ma’ Et, was a son of the great Achehnese ulama Teungku Tiro and, together with his brother Teungku Beb and their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng, one of the bearers of his father’s religious and political inheritance on the North Coast of Acheh after the elder Teungku’s death in 1891. He belongs to that second generation of the Tiro family whose collective task, after the collapse of their father’s supremacy in Great Acheh, was to keep alive the organisation of the sabil contributions on which the holy war against the Dutch depended.
The Sabil Contributions
Snouck Hurgronje’s footnote on the sons of Teungku Tiro records that Teungku Mat Amin — the eldest son and his father’s would-be successor as chief panglima of the resistance — was killed in action in 1896 when the Dutch troops captured the fortress of Aneu’ Galong. With Mat Amin’s death and the rapid melting-away of his following, the burden of maintaining the family’s prestige and the flow of sabil money from the dependencies fell upon his brothers. Teungku Mahidin (Ma’ Et) and Teungku Beb (who died in 1900) carried on this work in concert with their kinsman Teungku Chot Plieng, who was much respected for his piety and learning and who survived until 1901.
The North Coast Field
By the close of the nineteenth century Great Acheh no longer furnished a field for the labours of these men and their fellows. The “concentration” policy of the Dutch, the submissions of many of the uleebalangs, and the dissipation of Mat Amin’s band had effectively closed the interior to the Tiro organisation. The North Coast dependencies — the East and West Coast districts through which the sabil contributions were still collected — thus became the principal theatre of their activity. There they continued, as Snouck Hurgronje put it, to do their utmost to maintain the collections of the sabil contributions, even after the focus of the resistance had shifted away from the capital.
Place in the Tiro Tradition
Teungku Mahidin is one of the comparatively shadowy figures of the Tiro family. Unlike his father, whose personality dominated the religious and military life of Acheh for more than a decade, or his eldest brother, whose arrogance and violent end are described in some detail by Snouck Hurgronje, Ma’ Et appears in the record chiefly as a faithful continuer of his father’s work. His importance lies in the fact that, at the moment when the Tiro influence in Great Acheh had been broken, he and his remaining kinsmen were able to keep the channel of religious-tax contributions open along the North Coast, and so to prolong, for a few more years, the material basis of the Achehnese 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.