Tuan Meurasab — known in his own country as Kadir Wall Sahib and called by the Achehnese Meuralisab, Metirasab or simply Tuan Meurasab — is a Muslim saint whose tomb stands at Nagore on the Coromandel coast of Southern India, and who is reverenced by the Achehnese as a protector of navigation and a worker of miracles. The Achehnese form Meurah Sab is a contraction of Meurah Sahib — Meurah being an ancient title occurring in the records of the kingdom of Pase, apparently of foreign origin and almost equivalent to the Indian Mir (= Amir); Sab is an abbreviation of the Indian title Sahib. His cult appears to have been introduced into Acheh through the influence of those inhabitants of Southern India who were instrumental in bringing the creed of Islam to the country.
The 10th day of the sixth month of the Muhammadan year is accepted as the anniversary of his death. The kanduri (religious feast) held on that day is called the kanduri to’ thon Tuan Meurasab, i. e. “the religious feast for the expiration of the year of Tuan Meurasab”. Snouck Hurgronje places it in the same class as the saints’ days of the Muslim world generally — festivals whose true connection with the death-day of the holy man is often doubtful, and beneath whose Islamic veneer may be detected “some of the ancient pagan feasts of the people, after throwing off certain of their more characteristic heathen features disguised themselves under the names of saints to avoid the extermination which threatened them”.
In Acheh proper, the anniversary of Tuan Meurasab has “really no place in the Achehnese calendar of festivals”. The great kanduri on the 10th of the month at Kuta Raja and Trumon is always given by the Kling (South Indian Muslim) traders residing there, and the Achehnese who partake of it do so only as guests. Yet the saint’s intercession is invoked by Achehnese sailors and householders throughout the year, and his cult has been fully naturalised in popular devotion.
A cycle of wonder-tales clusters around Tuan Meurasab. According to one, he grew up in the wilderness in complete innocence, and having seen the breasts of a woman for the first time while he was himself suffering from a pimple on his hand, concluded that the poor woman must suffer terrible agony from “such gigantic tumours on her chest”. He prayed for the removal of these protuberances, and his prayer was at once answered; the woman, naturally much distressed, appealed to her family, and at their entreaties Meurasab offered up a second prayer which restored the lost charms. A second tale explains his patronage of sailors: the captain of a foundering ship vowed a handsome offering in Meurasab’s name if the leak were stopped; the saint, at that moment sitting under the barber’s razor with a small mirror in his hand, flung away the mirror, which by Allah’s help made its way through air and water and stopped the leak, so that vessel and cargo came safe to land.
Vows made to Tuan Meurasab are by no means confined to ships and sailors. His intervention is also invoked on behalf of sick children, the vow consisting in the promise of a gold or silver hand, or of “the height of the child in gold” (santeut d’òng), in the event of recovery. Such hands, or pieces of gold thread woven as thin as possible, are given to Kling traders journeying to Madras for transmission to the shrine at Nagore. Other vows are fulfilled at home: a master of a vessel who has vowed a goat to Tuan Meurasab for his safe return may kill the goat in his own gampong, make a kanduri with it, and request the teungku to recite over it the fatihah (the first chapter of the Quran) for the benefit of the saint.
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.
Tuan Meurasab — known in his own country as Kadir Wall Sahib and called by the Achehnese Meuralisab, Metirasab or simply Tuan Meurasab — is a Muslim saint whose tomb stands at Nagore on the Coromandel coast of Southern India, and who is reverenced by the Achehnese as a protector of navigation and a worker of miracles. The Achehnese form Meurah Sab is a contraction of Meurah Sahib — Meurah being an ancient title occurring in the records of the kingdom of Pase, apparently of foreign origin and almost equivalent to the Indian Mir (= Amir); Sab is an abbreviation of the Indian title Sahib. His cult appears to have been introduced into Acheh through the influence of those inhabitants of Southern India who were instrumental in bringing the creed of Islam to the country.
The 10th day of the sixth month of the Muhammadan year is accepted as the anniversary of his death. The kanduri (religious feast) held on that day is called the kanduri to’ thon Tuan Meurasab, i. e. “the religious feast for the expiration of the year of Tuan Meurasab”. Snouck Hurgronje places it in the same class as the saints’ days of the Muslim world generally — festivals whose true connection with the death-day of the holy man is often doubtful, and beneath whose Islamic veneer may be detected “some of the ancient pagan feasts of the people, after throwing off certain of their more characteristic heathen features disguised themselves under the names of saints to avoid the extermination which threatened them”.
In Acheh proper, the anniversary of Tuan Meurasab has “really no place in the Achehnese calendar of festivals”. The great kanduri on the 10th of the month at Kuta Raja and Trumon is always given by the Kling (South Indian Muslim) traders residing there, and the Achehnese who partake of it do so only as guests. Yet the saint’s intercession is invoked by Achehnese sailors and householders throughout the year, and his cult has been fully naturalised in popular devotion.
A cycle of wonder-tales clusters around Tuan Meurasab. According to one, he grew up in the wilderness in complete innocence, and having seen the breasts of a woman for the first time while he was himself suffering from a pimple on his hand, concluded that the poor woman must suffer terrible agony from “such gigantic tumours on her chest”. He prayed for the removal of these protuberances, and his prayer was at once answered; the woman, naturally much distressed, appealed to her family, and at their entreaties Meurasab offered up a second prayer which restored the lost charms. A second tale explains his patronage of sailors: the captain of a foundering ship vowed a handsome offering in Meurasab’s name if the leak were stopped; the saint, at that moment sitting under the barber’s razor with a small mirror in his hand, flung away the mirror, which by Allah’s help made its way through air and water and stopped the leak, so that vessel and cargo came safe to land.
Vows made to Tuan Meurasab are by no means confined to ships and sailors. His intervention is also invoked on behalf of sick children, the vow consisting in the promise of a gold or silver hand, or of “the height of the child in gold” (santeut d’òng), in the event of recovery. Such hands, or pieces of gold thread woven as thin as possible, are given to Kling traders journeying to Madras for transmission to the shrine at Nagore. Other vows are fulfilled at home: a master of a vessel who has vowed a goat to Tuan Meurasab for his safe return may kill the goat in his own gampong, make a kanduri with it, and request the teungku to recite over it the fatihah (the first chapter of the Quran) for the benefit of the saint.
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.