Mecca

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tagsplace, legendary-land, holy-city, arabia, city, foreign, religious, sacred-site, islam, islamic
aliasesAbu Jahl's kingdom in the Hikayat Nubuet, Mekka, Makkah, Mekkah, Makkah al-Mukarramah, Mekka (Snouck Hurgronje spelling), Mekka folk, Holy City of Islam, Sacred City, The Holy City

7 min read

  • inheritance
  • adat

In the Hikayat Nubuet: ‘Abu Jhay (Abu Jahl) is represented as king of Mecca’ and Muhammad ‘in his tender youth… with the help of forty companions, waged a long war against Abu Jhay who is represented as king of Mecca and who deemed himself slighted by the young lad.’

Mecca (also Mekka, Arabic Makkah) was the holiest city of Islam and a site of major importance to Acehnese society and religion. The performance of the haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) was one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and those who had completed it bore the title haji — a mark of great religious distinction in Acehnese society.

Role in Acehnese Islam

The title haji was one of several applied to the teungku class of religious leaders in Acheh, alongside leubë (one who observes his religious obligations faithfully), malém (one with some knowledge of the holy books), além (one who has brought his studies to perfection), ulama (an authority on religious law and doctrine), and sayyid (a descendant of Mohammed). The pilgrimage to Mecca was thus the most outward mark of Islamic devotion.

Snouck Hurgronje’s Time in Mecca

C. Snouck Hurgronje spent time in Mecca during 1884–1885, where he was in a position — especially at the holy city — to obtain intimate knowledge of the influence of Mohammedan fanaticism upon the obstinate resistance of the Acehnese to Dutch rule. This residence gave him the foundational insight for his study of Acehnese religion and politics.

Some members of Sayyid families from Mecca settled in Pidie and made occasional journeys to Keumala, where the young sultan Muhammad Dawot Shah treated them with the highest honour.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Mecca

Mecca (also written Mekka or Makkah) is the holy city of Islam in Arabia, the direction of which is indicated by the mihrab in every mosque and the destination of the hajj pilgrimage. In The Achehnese Vol. I Mecca is one of the most frequently cited places outside the East Indian Archipelago, both as the spiritual centre towards which Achehnese life is oriented and as the active source of the reforming influence that has progressively modified the indigenous adats of Acheh.

The kiblat — the direction of Mecca, to which attention has to be paid in the performance of prayers — is repeatedly noticed by Snouck Hurgronje. The mahrab or merab, the masonry niche of the Achehnese prayer-house (deah), is built solely to indicate it. The Achehnese believe that on the qadar night the very trees bow to the ground in awe in the direction of the kiblat, that is to say toward the Sacred Mosque at Mecca; the young folk make expeditions on the night of the 27th “to seek trees doing obeisance.” A line joining the three stars of Orion’s belt is also believed exactly to indicate the kiblat. The valley of Muna (the ancient Mina), which lies to the east of Mecca, is the scene of the great sacrificial feast connected with the Hajj on the 10th day of the month Dul-hidjah.

Mecca is the great centre through which the more strict and orthodox doctrine of Islam is brought to bear on the Archipelago. The tariqahs so popular in other parts of Sumatra do not flourish in Acheh, though sundry Achehnese hajis have enrolled themselves as members of a tariqah in Mecca; the zar spirits that “possess” the women of Mecca are compared with the Achehnese burong spirits that attack women in childbed. The doctrine that the sacrifice of a goat for a child (hakikah) is an extremely meritorious act to be offered in the holy city has been fostered by the people of Mecca, who of course reap the profits on the sale of the goats. So too the influence of Mecca has caused the celebration of the anniversaries of the departed so long as pious children or grandchildren survive to cherish their memory. The growing practice of dictating the words of the marriage-formula in the first person is said to have lately become customary in most localities “owing to the increasing influence of Mekka in such matters.” Achehnese who have lived in Mecca enjoy enhanced religious prestige: Cheh Marahaban, long a resident in Mecca, became ulama and kali to the sovereign of the port during the last years of the Sultanate; and some members of a sayyid family from Mecca settled in Pidie and made occasional journeys to Keumala, where the young sultan treated them with the highest honour.

The marriage-officials of Mecca are called mumlik (a term whose “absolute” identity of function with the district pangulus of Java Snouck Hurgronje had already discussed in his Mekka, Vol. II). Together with Medina and Cairo, Mecca is cited as a centre of Mohammedan civilisation where the legal equality of the children of slave-concubines with those of free wives is actually observed in practice — a custom only partially observed in Acheh and in inland Arabia. In the matter of the calendar, the doctrine of the ruya (observation of the new moon) has more recently been accepted throughout the East Indies under the combined influence of Mecca and Hadramaut, displacing the older method of hisab (calculation). Here, as in so much else, the holy city sets the standard to which the outlying Muslim lands tend, sometimes slowly and sometimes with great rapidity, to conform. Mecca (also written Mekka, Arabic Makkah) is the holy city of Islam in Arabia, and the destination of the pilgrimage (hajj) which every pious Achehnese was expected, if able, to accomplish at least once in his lifetime. Throughout The Achehnese it appears both as the supreme spiritual centre towards which Achehnese religious life was oriented — the kiblat or direction of prayer, the goal of the Hajj, and the source of much of the doctrinal and devotional literature in use in Acheh — and as the place where Snouck Hurgronje himself, during a residence in Arabia in 1884–1885, had gained that intimate knowledge of Mohammedan fanaticism which he afterwards applied to the analysis of Achehnese resistance to Dutch rule.

Account from Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (D. W. N. de Boer, 1931) — Mekka and the settlement of Atjehnese estates

Mekka bore directly on the Atjehnese law of property through the practice of settling one’s estate before departing on pilgrimage — a practice recorded by D. W. N. de Boer, former chairman of Atjehnese moesapat and landschapsgerecht courts.

De Boer noted that division of an estate during the lifetime of the prospective testator, called atra boeloeng, occurred very frequently in Atjeh, and took place among other occasions “als iemand op het punt staat naar Mekka te vertrekken” — when someone stands on the point of departing for Mekka. In view of the possibility that he might die during the hadj, a Mekkaganger preferred to regulate his affairs in advance: he feared that through sudden death or other circumstances he might have no opportunity to draw up a proper wasiët (testament), and did not wish to run the risk that a disposition drawn up on the journey or in “het heilige land” — the Holy Land — would fail to be transmitted home, or would not be executed according to his wish.

After a safe homecoming from Mekka, De Boer added, such a disposition made during life was often undone again.

See Also

Sources

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. Introduction, p. v; Chapter I, §§ 4, 9, pp. 44–58, 151–160.

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. 20260707_232246_DLP-54-Een_16de_eeuwse_Maleise_vertaling_van_de_Burda_van_al_Bu_s_i_ri_OCR.txt, pp. 83, 91.

Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.

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