Aceh (Atjeh)

Atjeh, Achin, lies at the most northerly part of the island of Sumatra. It was once the seat of a powerful Muslim empire and is now a province of the Indonesian Republic. Under Dutch rule its southern limit was formed by the residencies of Tapanuli and the east coast of Sumatra, now the province of North Sumatra, but in earlier times the political sovereignty of Atjeh extended much farther south. Pagan chiefs in the Batak regions received their rank from the princes of Great Atjeh. Only the district to the north-west, with the Atjeh river and the port of Atjeh, the former residence of the princes, was reckoned as Atjeh proper; the Dutch called it Great Atjeh and its capital Kuta Radja, "fort of the prince". The port of Sabang, on the island of Pulo Weh, dates only from the beginning of the twentieth century. ¹

The other districts on the west, north and east coasts were under Dutch rule known as the Dependencies. The inhabitants of the coast, the Baroh, differ in many respects from the people of the interior highlands, the Tunong. Under Dutch rule the Dependencies developed into a thriving country, in spite of the decline of the traditional pepper culture. In 1942 the rice export surplus was estimated at 45,000 tons, and betel nut, copra, rubber and livestock were exported. ²

High mountain chains separate the coastal plain from the Gayo country, which is divided by transverse chains into four tablelands. The northernmost, with the great Tawar lake and the sources of the river Peusangan, is held by the Urang Laut ("people of the lake"); the plain to its south by the Urang Doröt ("people of the land"); the table-land of Serbodjadi lies to the south-east, with the sources of the Peureula'; and the southern Gayo Luos ("wide Gayo") contains the bed of the Tripa. The Alas country lies south of this. The princes of Atjeh appointed four chiefs, the kedjuruns, as mediators between the Gayo and Atjeh; two of them governed round Lake Tawar, one among the Doröt, and one in Gayo Luos. Two kedjuruns represented Atjeh among the Alas. ³

Little is known of the origin of the people of Atjeh. They belong linguistically to the Malay-Polynesian peoples, though slaves from Nias and other foreigners, such as merchants from Hindustan, affected the population. Atjeh has many dialects; the literary language is closest to the idiom of the Baroh district. Gayo is an independent language, and Alas is a northern Batak dialect. In the nineteenth century Malay was almost unknown in Atjeh except in the sea-ports, but earlier it was the language of the court, and of letters, official documents and theology. The earliest Achehnese adaptations of Arabic and Malay works date from the seventeenth century. Snouck Hurgronje's study of the people in 1891-1892 is the basic source, and J. Kreemer's Atjeh (1922-1923) adds ethnographic detail. ³

Traces remain of a division of the population into four tribes or families (kawom). Their members regard themselves as blood relations in the male line, and share rights and obligations, especially in blood feud and the payment of blood money; but they are scattered over the country, and only where many kinsmen live together do they choose a chief to represent their common interests. The Gayo are divided into families living together under their chiefs, the rodjo, and when rodjo disagree the decision rests with a council. In Atjeh the keutjhi (the elder) heads the gampong, the village or quarter of a town, and consults the eldest in case of need. The religious affairs of the gampong, such as leading the community in the salat, belong to the teungku meunasah. The title teungku is borne both by men with religious functions and by those with some knowledge of sacred law. The gampong teungku were not men of learning; their rank had become hereditary, and in Snouck Hurgronje's time many were scarcely able to carry out their office without help. ²

In historical times Atjeh was divided into many small districts, whose hereditary chiefs, the ulebalangs (commanders-in-chief), lived in constant feud with one another, though they paid homage to the prince of the port of Atjeh as their common over-lord. The prince was called Sultan in Malay documents, but Radja or Poteu ("our master") by the Achehnese; the sultans and their male relatives bore the title tuanku, and the male members of the ulebalang families the title teuku. The power of the princes, and the wealth of their court mentioned in the earliest Malay and European accounts, depended on tribute from the neighbouring coastal regions and on harbour dues. The interior held little interest for them, and even at the height of the empire their authority was confined to the immediate vicinity of the capital. By the end of the seventeenth century the princes had become dependent on the ulebalangs of Great Atjeh. ³

The ulebalangs of Great Atjeh formed three federations, the Sagis ("sides") of the triangular-shaped country. Each Sagi had an overlord, the panglima sagi, whose authority did not extend beyond the common interests of the Sagi; such federations existed in the Dependencies too. The Sultan was chosen by the three Sagi chiefs, who were paid a sum by him; he usually belonged to the family of the previous ruler, though strangers, such as Sayyids who lived in Atjeh, were sometimes elected. In time other chiefs obtained a voice in the choice; according to tradition at one period twelve chiefs, including the three Sagi chiefs, chose the ruler. ³

Most ulebalangs of Great Atjeh and the Dependencies later received their authority from the Sultan, and in witness of it a document bearing the ruler's seal, a sarakata. The seal was of Hindustani origin, and the entry notes that the more important seal was the "tiab limong", the five-fold seal, which signified the hand, the ability to protect one's own interests, rather than the nine-fold seal of the sultan. The Kedjuruns of the Gayo and Alas were usually given a kind of dagger as their token of authority. ⁴

The Shafi'i rule makes the Friday service valid only if forty mukims are present, and a mukim is a person domiciled in the place who meets the conditions of the law. Most gampongs were too small to hold a Friday service of forty, so several gampongs were grouped round a mosque near the centre of the district. Mukim thus came to mean a department or circle, and each ulebalang ruled over several mukims. The three Sagis were named after their numbers of mukims: the Sagi of the 22 mukims in the south, of the 25 in the west, and of the 26 in the east, though the numbers later grew with the population. The chiefs of the mukims bore the title imeum, from imam, the leader of the Friday service; the imeums became hereditary secular chiefs and handed the leadership of communal prayer to special officials. ⁵

The chiefs themselves usually acted as judges, on the basis of the unwritten custom ('adat). Statutes, sarakata, which tradition credits to Meukuta 'Alam and other famous rulers, were brief regulations about administration, court ceremonial and the homage owed by the ulebalangs, the division of harbour dues, and some religious duties; they date from the time when the princes tried, without lasting result, to centralise their administration, and Muslim scholars at the court influenced them. The sultan and the panglimas each had a kadi, but the kadis took part in justice only on special occasions, such as the division of inheritance, some forms of divorce and marriages. The kadi Malikon Ade (Kadi Maliku'l-'Adil) became the hereditary chief of several gampongs in the sultan's realm, and the rank of other kadis also became hereditary. ⁵

Atjeh had Hindu-influenced civilisation and language in its earliest period; Islam later reached its shores, probably carried by Hindustani merchants. When Ibn Battuta visited Pasai in 1345, Islam held the field, and the ruler warred against his unbelieving neighbours. The Achehnese are orthodox Muslims, but Islam in Atjeh and elsewhere in Indonesia has peculiarities explained by its Indian origin. The first month is called Asan Usen, after the martyrs Hasan and Husayn, who are honoured in Shi'i countries; a captured standard bearing the sword Dhu '1-Fiqar with a Shi'i inscription once led some scholars to think the Achehnese were partly Shi'i, a view the entry rejects. The Achehnese were lax in many duties, and most neglected the salat, though many went on the pilgrimage each year. ⁴

Books in Malay, Arabic and Achehnese were studied under learned masters, and students from distant districts lived together in a rangkang, a common residence. In the empire's prime foreign scholars from India, Syria and Egypt came to settle, among them a son of Ibn Hajar al-Haytami. Achehnese pilgrims joined the orthodox mystic brotherhoods, especially the Qadiriyya and the Naqshbandiyya, but these had less importance in Atjeh than elsewhere in Indonesia. Pantheistic mysticism once prevailed in Atjeh, with Hamza Fansuri as its earlier figure and Shams al-Din al-Samatra'i of Pasai (died 1630) as its chief representative; its opponents were al-Raniri and 'Abd al-Ra'uf. The veneration of saints has a central place in popular faith, and some celebrated saints were foreigners, including an Arab, Teungku Anjong (died 1782), and the "saint of Gampong Bitay", said to have come in the sixteenth century. ⁶

At the summit of religious life stood the ulama, the supreme authorities on religious law and doctrine, who were held in great respect. They ranked far above the teungku of the village mosque, and an unlearned man who carried out his duties faithfully was not considered a real authority. The ulebalangs were champions of custom (adat), the ulama of the law (hukum), but the ulebalangs were also the religious heads of their own territories. The entry describes the relation between hukum and adat in Achehnese society as one in which custom is the mistress and the law her obedient servant who seeks any chance of escape. ⁵

Atjeh was the first part of Indonesia where Muslim kingdoms were founded. Marco Polo, visiting the north coast in 1292, found a Muslim king at Ferlec (Perlak), while two other countries, Basma and Samara, were still heathen. The port of Samudra, later called Pasai, remained for centuries an important centre for the spread of Islam in the Indian Archipelago. Its first Muslim king, al-Malik al-Salih, died in 1297. Its history rests on tomb-stones and coins, Malay chronicles, Chinese, Arabic and European sources. Tomé Pires, collecting information in Malacca in 1512-1515, found Pasai still independent, and its trade gained from the decline of Malacca after the Portuguese conquest. ⁶

The rising power was not Pasai but Atjeh. Its ruler, whom Pires calls a pirate-king and a knightly man among his neighbours, had already subdued the neighbouring country of Lambri and the land of Blar, between Pedir and Biheue. This is probably Sultan 'Ali Mughayat Shah, the first sultan of Djajadiningrat's list, whose accession date is uncertain. 'Ali Mughayat Shah, by conquering Daya to the west and Pidie and Pasai to the east, became the real founder of the empire of Atjeh. His successors include 'Ala' al-Din Ri'ayat Shah al-Kahhar (died 1571), who in 973 AH (1563) sent an embassy to Constantinople asking for help against the Portuguese; the Ottomans planned a naval expedition, but it was diverted to Yemen, and two ships with supplies and military technicians were sent to Atjeh instead. ⁷

The first half of the seventeenth century was Atjeh's zenith under Iskandar Muda (1607-1636), honoured after his death with the title Meukuta 'Alam, "Crown of the World". His dominion extended far to the south, and his great fleet expedition against Pahang and Malacca forms the subject of an Achehnese epic, the Hikayat Malem Dagang. ⁸

In 1638 a Portuguese embassy came to Atjeh and tried in vain to win the sultan to the side of Portugal in the war against the Dutch. Four princesses ruled Atjeh in the second half of the seventeenth century (1641-1699). Their rule increased the power of the ulebalangs, but many declared, on the authority of a fatwa from Mecca, that a woman could not lawfully rule. At the beginning of the eighteenth century a series of dynastic wars followed; some of the contenders were sayyids born in Atjeh, the best known being Jamal, who after his deposition in 1726 held out for a long time against later sultans. The contest between Jamal and Johan Shah is the subject of another Achehnese epic, the Hikayat Potjut Muhammat. Even after the court's authority and wealth had declined, the Achehnese revered the sultans as representatives of the faith. ⁹

In the nineteenth century the piracy and slave trade of the Achehnese, and their raids on neighbouring territories, were a constant danger. The Dutch were at first unable to stop this, as they had pledged in 1824 not to extend their dominion in Sumatra northwards; the obligation was removed by a treaty with England in 1871. The landing of Dutch troops in 1873 began the Atjeh War, which lasted, with pauses, until 1910, when pacification was considered complete. The entry names three components of the resistance: the ulama, the ulebalangs and the sultanate. The ulama were the strongest and the sultanate the weakest, because the sultan's influence had always been limited. When the Dutch took Kutaraja, the sultan's stronghold, they considered his government at an end. The pretender-sultan Muhammad Dawud, a child of six when elected after Mahmud Shah's death, hid from place to place until he submitted in 1903; he was banished from Atjeh in 1917. The ulama preached the holy war, and their war-chest was the zakat levied on the people; the Tiro teungkus, from the gampong of Tiro in Pidie, were an important centre of learning and a leading force in the war, and the last of them, Teungku Ma'at, was killed in 1911. The Hikayat Prang Sabi, which called the faithful to holy war, dates from this period. ⁸

It was a long time before the Dutch understood these three components. Snouck Hurgronje's investigations gave the political insight on which the military campaigns of the governors J. B. van Heutsz (1898-1904), G. C. E. van Daalen (1905-1908) and H. N. A. Swart (1908-1918) were based. Swart was the last governor charged with both civil government and military command in Atjeh. ¹⁰

Because the sultanate had been swept away, the Dutch treated the ulebalangs as the successors of the sultan's regents, and their authority, based on local customary law (adat), was built into the Dutch system. The ulebalangs' territories were recognised as native states, bound by a short contract, the korte verklaring, from 1898 onwards, which obliged the rulers to accept Dutch sovereignty and to have no political contact with foreign powers. Great Atjeh, the territory of the three Sagis, and the sub-district of Singkil were directly ruled territories. About 100 ulebalangs ruled as independent chiefs, and about 50 panglimas sagi and other local chiefs held office in the directly ruled areas. The Government of Atjeh and its Dependencies was divided into four districts, each under an Assistant Resident, and then into 21 sub-districts under controleurs. ¹¹

The ulebalang caste was consolidated by intermarriage and divided by historical feuds. Its hegemony covered government, justice under adat, and, under the hukum, the religious leadership of each territory; its members also held trading interests and large estates, and had first claim on education. When the Japanese war broke out, three ulebalangs of special weight were Teuku Nja' Arif, chief of the Sagi of the XXVI Mukims, who had represented Atjeh in the Volksraad until 1931; Teuku Muhammad Hasan of Glumpang Payung in Pidie; and the ruler of Peusangan in Bireuen. ¹²

The ulama and the ulebalangs co-operated during the war, but afterwards an antipathy grew between them, and the ulama regarded the ulebalangs as traitors. The Muhammadiyya, which began in Java, struck no responsive note in Achehnese religious life and attracted mainly non-Achehnese elements. The Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh (PUSA) was founded at Bireuen in 1939 under the patronage of the ruler of Peusangan, as a vehicle for a strictly orthodox Achehnese religious life; its leading figure was Teungku Muhammad Dawud Beureu'eh of Keumangan in Pidie. A youth movement, the Pemuda Pusa, quickly took on a more militant character. ¹³

In 1942 rebellions broke out against the Dutch, the Japanese landed in March 1942, and the rising spread quickly, led by Teungku Muhammad Dawud Beureu'eh and the Pusa. The Japanese kept a balance between the adat and the hukum, and tried to co-operate with both; the ulebalangs remained in government, and the Japanese chose the Indonesian gunchos mainly from ulebalang families. The ulama's position was strengthened at the ulebalangs' expense: a religious advisory council was set up in 1943, Dawud Beureu'eh became its deputy chairman, and a religious court was created in 1944. Mass arrests took place in 1943, and in August 1944 the ruler of Glumpang Payung was executed. The Japanese surrender in August 1945 left the way open for a final reckoning between ulama and ulebalangs; a civil war from December 1945 ended in February 1946 with the destruction of the ulebalangs' power. Religion served as the instrument of a social revolution against the place the ulebalang class held in society. ¹⁴

After the transfer of sovereignty in 1949 Atjeh was included in North Sumatra for administrative purposes, and Dawud Beureu'eh lost his post as governor. In 1951 many Pusa leaders were arrested in a general round-up of communists. In September 1953 Dawud Beureu'eh and his followers rebelled against the central government; a bloody guerrilla war lasted until an informal truce in 1957. In October 1956 Atjeh was again granted the status of an autonomous province. ¹⁵