Baghdad appears both as a real place and as a name used in the romances. In the Hikayat Nabi Usoh (Yusuf), the merchant ‘lands at Baghdad (or Bitay Mukadih = Jerusalem). Here the king is converted to the true faith by Usoh.’ In the Hikayat Putroe Baren, the story is set in ‘Boreudat (Baghdad).’ In the Hikayat Pha Suasa, ‘Raja Ahmat, the king of Baghdad (Boreudat)’ is the father of the twins Silver-thigh and Golden-thigh. In the Hikayat Kamarodaman, ‘in place of the land of Abanus we here have Baghdad.’ The romances thus use Baghdad interchangeably with Biblical Jerusalem and as a general ‘royal city.‘
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Bagdad
Bagdad — the historic capital of the Abbasid caliphate on the Tigris — appears in Vol. I of The Achehnese as a comparative reference in C. Snouck Hurgronje’s analysis of the political function of the royal sarakata (sealed edict of appointment). The mention is brief, but the comparison it carries is fundamental to an understanding of the late-sultanate constitution of Acheh.
In the decadent period of the Achehnese sultanate, Snouck observes, many uleebalangs and other chiefs dispensed altogether with the chab sikureu’eng (the nine-fold seal of the Sultan), since the lustre to be derived from its possession was not worth the trouble and expense — doing homage to the Sultan, presents to officials and scribes, and so forth. They entered on office without any seal at all, or were content to display the older deeds of appointment executed by former sultans in favour of one or more of their forefathers.
This situation, Snouck continues, “was the same, though on a very much smaller scale, as that of the Mohammedan kingdoms during the decay of the caliphate of the Abbasides. While the latter were hardly masters in their own palace, we find in Egypt, Syria etc. one prince thrusting another from his throne and robbing him of his provinces, and finally in his own good time going and demanding at Bagdad a solemn confirmation of” his newly-acquired power.
The point of the comparison is that the caliph at Bagdad, like the Sultan of Acheh in the late period, had been stripped of effective temporal authority and survived chiefly as a source of legitimating acts; provincial dynasts nevertheless continued, well into the period of their independence, to seek from him the formal investiture which gave their rule a sacred colour. The Sultan of Acheh stood in much the same relation to his uleebalangs: his sarakata and his chab sikureu’eng remained indispensable as a form, even after the central power had so decayed that a new title-bearer would not report himself to the capital until the most influential men of his district had agreed on his appointment.
Bagdad is thus in Vol. I a mirror held up to Acheh; its mention illuminates the institutional analogy between the Abbasid caliphate in its dotage and the Achehnese sultanate in the nineteenth century, when sultans such as Sultan Alaedin Muhamat Shah, Sultan Mansur Shah and Tuanku Muhamat Dawot continued to grant seals and edicts to chiefs who had long since ceased to obey them.
See Also
- Boreudat
- Hikayat Nabi Usoh
- Hikayat Pha Suasa
- Hikayat Putroe Baren
- Jerusalem
- Acheh
- Egypt
- Syria
- Sultan Alaedin Muhamat Shah
- Tuanku Muhamat Dawot
Source
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.