Persian names and stories appear in Achehnese romances though the actual traditions of Persia are not reproduced: ‘Persian names which appertain to the mythic or historic heroes of the Shahname (such as Qubad, Jamshid, Bahramshah). We must not however expect to find reproduced here one single particular of the actual traditions respecting these princes of Iran.’ The romance of Amir Hamzah came to the archipelago ‘from Persia by way of India.’ The fictional kingdom of Irandamin (literally Iran Zemin = land of Iran) is the birthplace of prince Cham Nadiman. The story of Rustam’s father (Sam Nadiman) is the source for Cham Nadiman’s name.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Persia
Persia — the historical name for Iran — appears in The Achehnese Vol. I as the principal home of the Shi’ite form of the Muharram commemorations whose carnival-like ceremonies Snouck Hurgronje distinguishes sharply from the sober Ashura observances of orthodox Islam. Persia is cited as the geographical origin of those features of the Hasan-Husain feasts which the Achehnese, as orthodox Shafi’ites, do not themselves practise.
The Shi’ite Ceremonies of Muharram
Snouck introduces Persia in his account of the month of Asan-Usen (Muharram). He explains that “in Shi’ite countries it is quite the reverse” of the orthodox custom of fasting on the 10th of Muharram. “There the first ten days of this month are devoted to all manner of ceremonies, processions, discourses and theatrical representations, purporting to commemorate the conflict between Mohammad’s grandson Husain and the Umayyads. These festivities culminate in the Ashura, on which day he perished on the plains of Kerbela, yet even on this a number of ceremonies follow.”
The noisier and more violent features of the festival — the carrying of the symbolic coffin (tabut), “the dances and bonfires, the dikrs with their mourning,” the plays in which “the murderer of Husain becomes exposed to actual violence” and “the mad processions, particularly common in Hindustan, and which remind one more of a fair or carnival than of a funeral pageant” — Snouck explicitly places in the Shi’ite sphere. “All this specially belongs to Persia and the Shi’ite portions of British India, and need not occupy our attention here.”
Shi’ite Influence on Orthodox Islam
The wider importance of Persia in Vol. I lies in Snouck’s recognition that “even Mohammedan peoples who follow the orthodox ritual, but whose life and thought have been subjected to Shi’ite influences celebrate feasts of the above description.” Such peoples, he observes, “recognize no impropriety in so doing, though their teachers refrain from all participation in these ceremonies, which are to a considerable extent of pagan origin.” The Achehnese themselves, Snouck notes, are Shafi’ites — Sunnis — yet the very name they give to the month (Asan-Usen, i.e. Hasan-Husain) and the cooking of the kanji Ashura porridge on the 10th day are survivals of the Shi’ite Ashura cult, transmitted eastward through British India.
Significance
Although Persia is mentioned in Vol. I only in this comparative context, the reference is essential to Snouck’s account of the formation of Achehno-Mohammedan culture. The Shi’itePersian influence upon the archipelago, transmitted through the Deccan and the sepoys of British India, is one of the historical layers that lies beneath the surface of the official Shafi’ite Islam of Acheh. Vol. II of The Achehnese develops these comparative inquiries further.
See Also
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.