Syria — the geographical Syria of Ottoman times, comprising modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the adjacent districts — appears in The Achehnese in two quite distinct contexts: as one of the Moslem heartlands in which, during the decay of the Abbasid caliphate, ambitious princes thrust one another from their thrones; and as the supposed native land of the artisans sent by the Sultan of Turkey to instruct the Achehnese in various arts hitherto unknown to them, who gave their settlement near the Dalam the name of Bitay.
The first notice occurs in Snouck Hurgronje’s general sketch of the political analogies between the Achehnese sultanate and the historical Moslem kingdoms. “While the [Abbasids] were hardly masters in their own palace, we find in Egypt, Syria etc. one prince thrusting another from his throne and robbing him of his provinces, and finally in his own good time going and demanding at Bagdad a solemn confirmation of [his title].” The analogy is used to illustrate the position of the Achehnese sultans, who, in the period of the kingdom’s decline, were reduced to a similar ceremonial pre-eminence while their great chiefs held the real power in the sagis and dependencies.
The second, and more concrete, notice of Syria is in the legendary history of the cannon Lada Sichupa’ and of the relations opened by an Achehnese sultan in the sixteenth century with the Sultan of Turkey. According to this tradition, the Sultan of Turkey sent to his new Achehnese vassal a number of skilled artisans from his kingdom, and “it is said that a number of these instructors who came from Syria, settled in a gampong close to the Dalam, and in remembrance of their native land gave the village the name of Bitay (Ach. pronunciation of Betal, an abbreviation of Betal-makdis = Jerusalem).” In Bitay “may still be seen the grave of a saint, Teungku di Bitay, who according to the tradition belonged to this colony of strangers.”
The legend is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s view, “somewhat legendary”; the historical kernel is the well-attested intercourse between Acheh and the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, and the introduction by Turkish or Syrian artisans of new crafts, including (above all) the casting of cannon. The figure of Teungku di Bitay, revered as the teacher of the Achehnese in the art of casting cannon, is the most tangible survival of this Syrian connection; his tomb and the mosque beside it in Bitay, “revered as sacred up to the present day,” perpetuate the memory of a small colony of Ottoman artisans settled near the Achehnese court.
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.