Djidda

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tagsplace, city, port, arabia, 19th-century, snouck-hurgronje, djidda, mekka, hejaz, dutch-consulate, sacred-site, red-sea, exile, foreign, coast
aliasesJeddah, Jidda, Djedda, Djeddah, Port of Djidda, Jiddah, Jedda, Port of Jeddah, Port of Mecca

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Djidda (modern Jeddah) is the port city of the Hejaz region of western Arabië, the principal port of entry for pilgrims to [[Mekka|Mekka], and the seat of the European consulates — including the Dutch consulate — that attended to the interests of the pilgrims from their respective countries. For Atjèhse history, Djidda is significant as the place where Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje arrived on 28 August 28 August 1884 in the company of the Dutch consul Kruijt, where he resided for half a year before his journey to Mekka, where he met the exiled Habib Abdoerrachman ez-Zahir and received the recept for the pacification of Atjèh, and where he returned after his expulsion from Mekka on 5 August 5 August 1885 before his return to Europe on 19 September 19 September 1885.

The Climate and the City

Djidda, the port of Mekka, lies on the Red Sea coast of the Hejaz. The climate is unclean, the air very humid, and the atmosphere at great heat extremely oppressive. If there were no Mekka behind Djidda, no one would ever have chosen Djidda as dwelling or even as halting-place. The city’s existence is wholly dependent on its function as the port of Mekka — the port of entry for the pilgrims who come by sea to perform the hajj, and the port of departure for those who return.

The European Consulates

Djidda was the seat of the European consulates — including the Dutch consulate under the consul Kruijt — that attended to the interests of the pilgrims from their respective countries. The only European society that, as a curiosity, existed at Djidda was a society for the maintenance of a cemetery for non-Mohammedans — to which Snouck Hurgronje was soon invited to become a member on his arrival in 1884. But Snouck wished to live at Djidda as a Mohammedan, and not to be buried as a non-Mohammedan. Europeans too, he thought, could live at Djidda, provided they observed regularity in conduct.

France was, in 1884, not fully represented at Djidda. The vice-consul was on leave, and the first drogman — also a Frenchman — performed the office. Formerly, under similar circumstances, the Dutch consul Kruijt had often attended to the French interests; but now Kruijt too had been absent. Only in October 1884 did the vice-consul De Lostalot return to Djidda, and then France was — though fuller, yet worse represented.

The Huber Murder

The report that Dr. Huber had been murdered was received at Djidda shortly before the arrival there of Dr. Snouck Hurgronje together with the Dutch consul Kruijt in August 1884. The murder of Huber — the French scholar who had been killed on a second scientific journey in the interior of Arabië, after leaving the goods that he and Professor Euting had gathered (including the famous Stele of Teima) with their host the emir Ibn Rasjid at Haïl — was the immediate occasion of the French vice-consul De Lostalot’s interference, and so of the lies that would lead to Snouck Hurgronje’s expulsion from Mekka.

Snouck Hurgronje’s Half-Year at Djidda

Snouck Hurgronje stayed at Djidda a little half-year, from 28 August 28 August 1884 to his departure for Mekka on 21 February 21 February 1885. He spent his time acquiring the local spoken Arabic. He also established Mekkan relations, and studied from afar, as well as could be done, the conditions and relations within the holy city; and his attention was especially directed to the Djawa — the colony at Mekka of Muslims originating from Nederlandsch-Indië. Photographs were made of groups of pilgrims from diverse lands. And finally preparations had to be made for the journey to Mekka, if it should come to that; if that should be allowed to succeed!

It was during this half-year at Djidda that Snouck Hurgronje met the exiled Habib Abdoerrachman ez-Zahir — Atjèh’s “unkingsed king” from the days of the governor Van der Heijden, who had submitted against the payment of a handsome annual salary and had since resided at Mekka. The Habib had already on 8 Moharram 1302 (i.e. in October 1884, when Snouck Hurgronje had been but a few months at Djidda) given him a recept — a recipe — for how Atjèh, in the Habib’s view, was to be pacified.

The Return from Mekka (5 August 1885)

On 5 August 5 August 1885 Snouck Hurgronje was given notice that he had to leave Mekka immediately. Only a few hours were granted him to pack his trunks; and then the journey went back to Djidda, under the guidance of two Turkish police-soldiers. At Djidda, Snouck Hurgronje would remain until his return to Europe on 19 September 19 September 1885 — a month and a half during which the lies of De Lostalot had also worked through in the Arab press, and return to Mekka was no longer possible.

Significance

Djidda, for Atjèhse history, is significant as the place where Snouck Hurgronje’s Atjèh interest was first awakened — through his meeting with the exiled Habib Abdoerrachman ez-Zahir, who gave him the recept for the pacification of Atjèh in October 1884, and through his study of the Djawa pilgrims whom he would later (at Mekka) come to know more closely. The half-year at Djidda from 28 August 28 August 1884 to 21 February 21 February 1885 was the formative prelude to the six-month residence at Mekka that would be the formative scholarly experience of Snouck Hurgronje’s career.

Sources

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.

See Also

Source

Drie Atjeh-mannen: Snouck Hurgronje — Van Heutsz — Van Daalen, door H. T. Damsté (September 1936). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-111-Drie_Atjeh_mannen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 5, 7–9.

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