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that what the Achehnese of that day specially desired of their foreign teachers was enlightenment on questions of mysticism, as to which much contention prevailed.
Shamsuddīn and Hamza Pansuri.The best known representatives of a more or less pantheistic mysticism were a certain Shaikh Shamsuddīn of Sumatra (= Pasè), who seems to have enjoyed much consideration at the court of the great Meukuta Alam (1607–36)[1], and who died in 1630, and his forerunner Hamzah Pansuri.[2]
Persecution of heretics.The orthodox opponents of this Indo-Mohammedan theosophy in a Malay dress won their wish under the successor of Meukuta Alam, who at their instigation put the disciples of Hamzah to death, and had the books which embodied his teaching burnt. Many of these works, however, escaped the flames,[3] and the princes and chiefs of Acheh were not always so obedient to the orthodox persecutors. Even to the present day Hamzah's writings are to be met with both in Acheh and in Malay countries, and in spite of the disapproval of the pandits they form the spiritual food of many.
In the language of the Arab mysticism, he who strives after communion with God is a sālik or walker on the way (ṭarīqah) leading to the highest. Although these words are also used by most of the orthodox mystics, popular expression in Acheh has specially applied the term sālik-learning (èleumèë saléʾ) to such mystic systems as are held in abhorrence by the orthodox teachers of the law.
About 30 or 40 years ago one Teungku Teureubuë[4] acquired a great celebrity in the Pidië district as a teacher of such èleumèë saléʾ. Men and women crowded in hundreds to listen to his teaching. Even his opponents gave him the credit of having been extremely well versed in Arabic grammar, a thing we rarely hear of other native mystics. Yet the opposition which his peculiar doctrines excited among the representatives of the official orthodoxy was so great that they instigated Béntara Keumangan (chief of the league of the six ulèëbalangs) to
- ↑ See the Achehnese chronicles edited by Niemann, p. ١٢٩, line 7.
- ↑ As to these two see Dr. Van der Tuuk's essay pp. 51–52. That Hamzah belongs to an earlier period may. be gathered from the fact that Shamsuddin wrote commentaries on some of his works.
- ↑ Hence I was able to obtain from an Achehnese a copy of the (
Arabic characters) mentioned by Van der Tuuk.
- ↑ So called after the gampōng in Pidië where he taught; his real name was Muhamat Saʾit, abbreviated into It.
