Silang is a mukim (territorial district) within the XXVI Mukims — one of the three sagis of Great Acheh — which is mentioned in The Achehnese Vol. I as the site of the tomb of the celebrated religious teacher Teungku Hamba Alah, a saint whose influence over the people of the sagi was so great that the panglima of the XXVI Mukims made over to him the government of thirteen of his mukims.
The Tomb of Teungku Hamba Alah
Snouck Hurgronje introduces Silang in his account of the decay of the sultan’s authority over the great chiefs, in the section dealing with the way in which religious teachers acquired territorial power in Acheh. “A teacher of celebrity, Teungku Hamba Alah, whose tomb in the mukim of Silang is still revered as a holy place, exercised during his life a powerful influence on the people of the XXVI Mukims.”
The tomb (kramat) at Silang belongs to that class of Achehnese holy places which the people visit in fulfilment of vows or to seek the intercession of the saint. Such ziarah shrines are scattered throughout the mukims of Great Acheh, and that at Silang is singled out by Snouck on account of the political importance of its occupant.
From Religious Teacher to Hereditary Uleebalang
The reverence paid to Teungku Hamba Alah at Silang is closely connected with the history of the XIII Mukims Tungkob. The panglima of the XXVI Mukims, Snouck continues, “whether from respect for his learning or in order to neutralize his influence, made over to him the government of thirteen of his mukims and let him enforce Allah’s law there to his heart’s content. Circumstances favoured the efforts of his descendants to retain this control, and thus the hereditary uleebalangship of the XIII Mukims Tungkob became established without any distinctively religious character, so that the later bearers of the title have exchanged the religious dignity of Teungku for the worldly one of Teuku Imeum Tungkob.”
Significance
Silang thus represents one of the clearest examples in Achehnese history of the transformation of a religious office into a territorial chieftainship. The tomb around which the mukim’s fame centres is the final relic of the once-formidable influence of Teungku Hamba Alah — an influence which passed, by hereditary succession, into the hands of the Teuku Imeums Tungkob who ruled the XIII Mukims Tungkob in Snouck’s own day. The continued veneration of the saint at Silang long after his successors had become secular chiefs testifies to the persistence of religious sentiment in Achehnese political life.
See Also
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.