The East Indian Archipelago — also called the Indian Archipelago, the Eastern Archipelago, or the Malayan Archipelago (and sometimes simply the Archipelago) — is the great island world of South-East Asia, of which Acheh forms the westernmost part. Snouck Hurgronje uses the term throughout The Achehnese as the geographical frame within which the institutions of Acheh are to be understood: Acheh is “a part of the East Indian Archipelago,” and its customs are continually set beside those of the other Mohammedan peoples of the Archipelago — those of Java, Madura, the Malay Peninsula, the Straits Settlements, Celebes, and so on. The four designations (Indian, East Indian, Eastern, Malayan Archipelago) are essentially interchangeable in Snouck’s usage, all denoting the same common Mohammedan civilisation from which, in his account, the institutions of Acheh are ultimately derived.
Islam introduced from Hindustan
The creed of Islam, Snouck argues, would appear to have made its first advances towards the Eastern Archipelago from the coastlands of the southern part of British India — that is, from the Deccan. The Mohammedans of the Deccan, whose manners are portrayed in the Qanoon-e-islam of Jaffur Shurreef (translated by G. A. Herklots), are Shafi’ites, just like those of the Malayan Archipelago; their national ideas and customs have arisen to a great extent under strong Shi’ite influences. These “adventitious additions to their creed were adopted by the Malay and other inhabitants of the Eastern Archipelago along with the creed itself.” The Deccan form of Mohammedanism, Snouck concludes, “exercised an influence on that of the Indonesians superior in force to that of any other agency.”
The popular religious literature of the Archipelago bears the marks of this Indian and Persian provenance. The stories which are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago — of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures of Amir Hamzah (the uncle of Mohammad), of the romantic adventures of Mohammad ibnu’l-Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), of the hero Sam’un, Raja Badar and many more — are all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of Islam as fixed in Arabia.
Shi’ite tendencies and the sayyids
Islam as first introduced into the Eastern Archipelago from Hindustan “has always shown Shi’ite tendencies.” This is reflected in the reverence paid to the descendants of the Prophet — the sayyids and sharifs — whose conception as sacred, inviolable and entitled to the reverence of all Believers gradually became part of the orthodox teaching of the Archipelago. Native-born descendants of sayyids quickly assume the character inherited from their mothers; they lose their knowledge of the Arabic tongue, and though they continue, in spite of occasional opposition, to belong to the dreaded and respected religious nobility, they cannot, in the long run, compete with their kinsmen who come over from Arabia. The title of such sayyids in earlier times was Teungku Sayet (= Sayyid); the celebrated Sayyid Abdurrahman Zahir introduced the custom of substituting for these two words the title Habib (literally “beloved”) used in Arabia as an honorific designation of Sayyids.
Marriage-makers and the wali
The system of official marriage-makers is treated as characteristic of the East Indian Archipelago as a whole. In every part of the Archipelago, the wali of the bride is almost invariably represented by a wakil, even though he be actually present at the making of the contract. The district pangulu, or whatever other name the maker of the marriage contract may be known by, causes one or two of the officers of the mosque to attend marriages, and these obtain a moderate fee for their assistance. The names of these officials vary with the locality: in Mekka they are called mumlik; in Medina, “licentiates for the making of marriages”; in Egypt, fiqhī; in Java, naib or district pangulu, or their subordinates (ketib, etc.); in Acheh, teungku meunasah.
The persons entrusted with the task of concluding marriage contracts in their division or district have, in the East Indian Archipelago, a natural dislike of competition, and are human enough to feel a strong inclination to monopolize the profits arising from their office. The method by which a marriage is concluded — the official deputy, having been empowered by the wali as his wakil, enters into the marriage contract on the wali’s behalf — is, Snouck observes, the one “most generally resorted to in other Mohammedan countries, as for example in Arabia.”
The ta’liq
The Indian Archipelago is also the scene of the universal application of the ta’liq — the method, sanctioned by Mohammedan law, by which a husband’s failure to maintain his wife, or his prolonged absence from her, entitles her to a judicial declaration dissolving the marriage. Such predeclared and morally compulsory ta’liqs are by no means rare in the Indian Archipelago: the husband, for instance, in conformity with an agreement with his parents-in-law, declares immediately after the marriage ceremony that he will be liable to divorce if he ill-treats his wife, fails to maintain her, or absents himself for a specified period.
Snouck’s treatment of the marriage contract opens with the observation that “as Acheh forms a part of the East Indian Archipelago, our remarks on the marriage contract would be incomplete if we failed to notice one negative peculiarity, namely the complete absence in Acheh of the ta’liq.” The ta’liq — a method to which the Mohammedan law itself gives the impulse — was resorted to throughout the East Indian Archipelago in order to mitigate the miseries of the wife whose husband had abandoned her without severing the lawful bond of marriage. The wife’s position, in such a case, was in Mohammedan society a miserable one. The same custom, Snouck notes, exists in the Straits Settlements, and would in all probability be met with in those parts of Hindustan whence Islam was introduced into the East Indian Archipelago.
The month of all souls and the day of Ashura
The choice of the eighth month of the year for the commemoration of the dead — the kanduri bu (Sha’bān) of Acheh, the ruwah of Java — is “a further corroboration of the introduction of Islam into Acheh from the Deccan,” since in Arabia the commemoration generally takes place in the seventh month. Throughout the whole of the Indian Archipelago, the month of Sha’bān is dedicated to the commemoration of the dead: “this does not imply grief for their loss, but rather care for their souls’ repose, which is not inconsistent with merrymaking.” The name of the month in many native languages is borrowed from this pious custom: in Javanese it is called Ruwah (month of all spirits), and in Achehnese Bulèë kanduri, since on some one day of this month every household holds, in honour of the departed, a religious feast in which rice forms the principal dish.
The third month of the Mohammedan year, Rabī’ al-awwal, is in every Mohammedan country — but especially in the Eastern Archipelago — a month of feasts. According to the now generally accepted tradition, the 12th of this month was the date both of the birth and of the death of the Prophet. The Ashura day, of which orthodox Islam takes but little notice, has in Java given its name Sura to the month, and the cooking of special viands on the Ashura day is found throughout the Archipelago: in Hindustan the chosen dish is khichri; in Cairo it is hubub (“seeds” or “grains”); in Java the bubur sura consists of various grains or seeds.
Funeral observances
The funeral observances of the Moslim populations of the Indian Archipelago are, Snouck observes, “practically identical with those of Acheh.” The rules prescribed by the Mohammedan law for the treatment of the dead are pretty faithfully observed throughout the Archipelago, though here as everywhere else they are “modified and added to in details by the adat of the country.” The special tahlils recited in Acheh on the third, seventh, ninth, eleventh, forty-fourth and hundredth days after death have their parallels in the other parts of the E. Indian Archipelago; the Achehnese name kanduri meueng ubèë jeurat (“the feast of the cat at the grave”) is, however, peculiar to Acheh, and the name sěndana given to this feast in other parts of the E. Indian Archipelago is unknown in Acheh.
The first contact with the child’s mother earth
Throughout the whole of the Indian Archipelago it is regarded as a momentous epoch in the life of a child when he first comes into contact with his mother earth — that is, when he is first set down on the ground. The peutron, as this ceremony is called in Acheh, has its parallels in every part of the Archipelago; the Achehnese form is described by Snouck as one of the most characteristic of Achehnese domestic ceremonies.
See Also
- Acheh
- Hindustan
- Deccan
- Arabia
- Java
- Madura
- Malay Peninsula
- Straits Settlements
- Celebes
- Mecca
- Medina
- Egypt
- Amir Hamzah
- Habib Abdurrahman Zahir
- Jaffur Shurreef
- G. A. Herklots
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.