Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje

“ Indeed, in Islâm it is only necessary to remove the mediæval restriction of the right to complete political existence, which was limited to members of the same community, and to expand the idea of the community to one embracing the whole world, in order to assure absolute world-peace, an absolute command of the divine law. To modern states which have Mohammedans as subjects, protégés, or allies, the beautiful task is reserved of educating these and themselves at the same time to this high conception of human society ”

“ No one would think for one moment of considering Confucianism, Hinduism, or Buddhism as specially akin to Christianity, whereas Islâm has been treated by some historians of the Christian Church as belonging to the heretical offspring of the Christian religion. In fact, if we are able to abstract ourselves for a moment from all dogmatic prejudice and to become a Meccan with the Meccans, one of the "neighbours of Allah," as they call themselves, we feel in their temple, the Ḥaram, as if we were conversing with our ancestors of five or six centuries ago. ”

“ We can here witness for ourselves one of the methods by which an Achehnese heroic poem is brought into the world. Some one man, who like most of his fellow countrymen knows by heart the classic descriptions of certain events and situations as expressed in verse by the people of the olden time, but whose knowledge, owing to his training and environment, is somewhat greater than that of others; one who is endowed, besides, with a good memory and enthusiasm for the poesy of his country, puts his powers to the test by celebrating in verse the great events of more recent years. ”

“ All this they have done, being led away by shameful appetites, which are not for me to set forth, but which are public and a cause for sorrow to the Moslems of the whole world, who have seen this greatest and most noble Moslem Power broken in pieces and led down to ruin and utter destruction. Our lament is also for so many of its subjects, Moslems and others alike, whose lives have been sacrificed without any fault of their own. Some have been treacherously put to death, others cruelly driven from their homes, as though the calamities of war were not enough. ”

“ It is the girls' school that will awaken those sleeping ones and so, slowly and gradually, prepare a better future, when the Moslim woman will be the worthy companion of her husband and the intelligent educator of her children. This will be due, then, neither to the Prophet's Sunnah nor to the infallible Agreement of the Community of the first centuries of Islâm, but to the irresistible power of the evolution of human society, which is merciless to laws even of divine origin and transfers them, when their time is come, from the treasury of everlasting goods to a museum of antiquities. ”

“ Beloved by his followers for his generous and kindly demeanour, he worked himself up from a mere panglima in the war against the Dutch to be the dreaded lord of almost the whole West Coast. Throughout the whole of the sphere of his influence, his appearance is the signal for the heriditary chief to retire into the background, well knowing that if he failed to do so it would soon be all over with him. To crown all he induced the sultan for a handsome consideration to impress his nine-fold seal upon his power by means of a deed appointing him "Sea-guardian of the West Coast." ”

“ The Moslim of yore, going through the world with the Qorân in one hand, the sword in the other, giving unbelievers the choice between conversion or death, is a creation of legendary fancy. We can but hope that modern civilization will not be so fanatical against Moslims, as the latter were unjustly said to have been during the period of their power. If the modern world were only to offer the Mohammedans the choice between giving up at once the traditions of their ancestors or being treated as barbarians, there would be sure to ensue a struggle as bloody as has ever been witnessed in the world. ”

“ The whole set of laws which, according to Islâm, should regulate the relations between believers and unbelievers, is the most consequent elaboration imaginable of a mixture of religion and of politics in their mediæval form. That he who possesses material power should also dominate the mind is accepted as a matter of course; the possibility that adherents of different religions could live together as citizens of the same state and with equal rights is excluded. ”

“ What stronger proof can we desire of the faithlessness of their inmost hearts to the Religion, and of their feelings towards the Arabs, than their bombardment of that ancient House, which God has chosen for His House, saying, "Keep my House pure for all who come to it,"—a House so venerated by all Moslems? ”

“ Without doubt a disordered state of affairs is favourable to the attainment of their purpose, even though it may not arise from the invasion of an infidel power. It gives them a chance to gain adherents, and, if all goes well, to attain a degree of power such as compels the respect of the inactive hereditary chiefs. Nor is the religious element lacking even in their case, for we must always recollect that no single Achehnese has any doubt of the meritorious character of the struggle with the Gōmpeuni, a belief shared even by those who are least inclined to risk their lives for the cause. ”

“ The Caliph, the lieutenant of Allah's Messenger, and the jzhâd, the holy war against the whole world outside Islâm: with those two names was indissolubly connected the remembrance of those two brilliant centuries in which the course of circumstances seemed to justify the Mohammedan ambition for world-dominion. Whatever disappeared in reality survived in legend; the worship of the shadow-Caliphs of Bagdad made it easier for many Mohammedans to forget the failure of their political ideal. ”

“ It is now almost thirty years since I lived the life of a Meccan student during one university year, after having become familiar with the matter taught by the professors of the temple of Mecca, the Haram, by privately studying it, so that I could freely use all my time in observing the mentality of people learning those things not for curiosity, but in order to acquire the only true direction for their life in this world and the salvation of their souls in the world to come. For a modern man there could hardly be a better opportunity imagined for getting a true vision. ”

“ Such an unusual personality, revered by many and dreaded by the rest, is required in order that even the most moderate demands of religion may be satisfied. The true Achehnese, if he does not entirely neglect the calls of his creed, takes part with more zeal in the religious or quasi-religious gatherings in the meunasah than in the assemblages at the mosque, where he feels himself but half at home.
Kanduris (religious feasts) he gives and attends with pleasure; at ratébs or recitations, whether real or only imitative like the ratéb sadati and pulèt, he can excite himself to the highest pitch ”

“ It is improbable that even foreign influence could prevail on a Shereef of Mecca to attempt to gamble for the Caliphate. They all know too well how little chance of success there would be in such an attempt, and they feel themselves limited by tradition and by their resources to the Hijaz.
Perhaps it is not superfluous to controvert another error into which many fall,—the opinion, namely, that the wresting of the Hijaz from Turkish domination would, automatically, end the Turkish Caliphate, since the Caliph bases his claim to the title partly on his protection of the Holy Cities. ”

“ Marvellous explanations of simple occurrences, true historical facts in the guise of fictitious visions or miracles, these are licences which we cannot blame in any poet, and least of all in an Achehnese poet. With Teungku Lam Rukam, however, human feelings always maintain their place, and history never disappears behind the veil of legend. ”

“ To the greater part of the world represented by this international exhibition of Islâm, as a modern Mussulman writer calls it, our modern world, with all its problems, its emotions, its learning and science, hardly exists. On the other hand, the average modern man does not understand much more of the mental life of the two hundred millions to whom the barren Mecca has become the great centre. In former days, other centres were much more important, although Mecca has always been the goal of pilgrimage and the cherished abode of many learned men. ”

“ All sorts of religious ideas and practices, which could not possibly be deduced from Mohammed's message, entered the Moslim world by the permission of Ijmâʿ. Here we need think only of mysticism and of the cult of saints.
Some passages of the Qorân may perhaps be interpreted in such a way that we hear the subtler strings of religious emotion vibrating in them. The chief impression that Mohammed’s Allah makes before the Hijrah is that of awful majesty, at which men tremble from afar; they fear His punishment, dare hardly be sure of His reward, and hope much from His mercy. ”

“ Whoever would introduce by force an alteration in existing legal institutions found it necessary to reduce his innovation to writing, but those who were content to leave things as they were, seldom resorted to codification of the customary law. Whether changes such as these are abiding or disappear after a brief show of life, the writing remains as their witness; it is the life of the people alone that testifies of institutions which have withstood the attack of external change and modify themselves intrinsically by almost imperceptible degrees. ”

“ They find that every political change, in these terrible times, is to the prejudice of Islâm, one Moslim people after another losing its independent existence; and they regard it as equally dangerous that Moslim princes are induced to accommodate their policy and government to new international ideas of individual freedom, which threaten the very life of Islâm. They see the antagonism to all foreign ideas, formerly considered as a virtue by every true Moslim, daily losing ground, and they are filled with consternation by observing in their own ranks the contamination of modernist ideas. ”

“ Where, however, an ulama goes beyond these everyday limits and travels about the country to enforce reform according to the spirit of the law, the respect he inspires increases to the highest degree, unless his life be in gross contrast with his preaching, and his proceedings manifestly dictated by ambition only. Many Achehnese sinners sympathize in the fullest sense with such a revival, while the rest dare not do otherwise than pretend to assent to it. At times indeed a section of the people will range themselves in opposition to such an ulama ”

“ Nowadays, praise be to Allah, we are permitted to believe what we like; but people continue to kill each other for political or social dissension. That is most pitiful indeed; for the weapons in use being more terrible and more costly than before, mankind lacks the peace necessary to enjoy the liberty of conscience it has acquired."
The truthful irony of these words need not prevent us from considering the independence of spiritual life and the liberation of its development from material compulsion as one of the greatest blessings of our civilization. ”

“ The European who comes into contact only superficially with the native community, is too apt to think that the adat among them is an almost unchangeable factor of their lives, surrounded on every side with religious veneration. Yet it does not require much philosophic or historical knowledge to be convinced that such invariable elements subsist just as little in the native world as in our own, although among them the conscious reverence for all that is regarded as old and traditional is stronger than in our own modern societies. ”

“ Islâm has always looked at the world in a pessimistic way, a view expressed in numberless prophetic sayings. The world is bad and will become worse and worse. Religion and morality will have to wage an ever more hopeless war against unbelief, against heresy and ungodly ways of living. While this is surely no reason for entering into any compromise with doctrines which depart but a hair's breadth from Qorân and Sunnah, it necessitates methods of defence against heresy as unknown in Mohammed's time as heresy itself. "Necessity knows no law" is a principle fully accepted in Islâm ”

“ An Achehnese woman whose husband has gone as a pepper-planter to the East or West Coast and gives no sign of his existence for years, may indeed feel unhappy; but as she lives in her own house either together with or in the immediate neighbourhood of her own family, she is seldom constrained to demand a dissolution of marriage by faskh. In the same way there exists no necessity for facilitating by conditional divorce, such dissolution of wedlock which as we have seen is most difficult to obtain by faskh. ”

“ And the common people are willingly taught by the canonists and feed their hope of better days upon the innumerable legends of the olden time and the equally innumerable apocalyptic prophecies about the future. The political blows that fall upon Islâm make less impression upon their simple minds than the senseless stories about the power of the Sultan of Stambul, that would instantly be revealed if he were not surrounded by treacherous servants, and the fantastic tidings of the miracles that Allah works in the Holy Cities of Arabia which are inaccessible to the unfaithful. ”

“ In spite of the coming privations the approach of the fasting month is joyfully welcomed. Those who have begun to join in the fast while still young can endure the daily abstinence without much effort, if not required to do any heavy work during this month, and if allowed to accomodate their occupations to the change of living which the fast involves. The nights of the Puasa in an Achehnese gampōng are full of noisy merriment, especially among the young men in their own particular sphere, the meunasah. ”

“ The naïve ideas concerning the other world in the clear-cut form outlined for them by previous generations are most likely to remain unchanged in a religious community where intellectual intercourse is chiefly limited to that between members of the community. There the belief is fostered that things most appreciated and cherished in this fading world by mankind will have an enduring existence in a world to come, and that the best of the changing phenomena of life are eternal and will continue free from that change, which is the principal cause of human misery. ”

“ No Achehnese devotes a measure of care to the cleanliness, the feeding, the repose and the pleasure of his own child in any way comparable to that he bestows on his scrupulous training of these fighting animals. ”

“ Is it to be supposed, he asks, that a religion as ridiculous as the Islâm described by Christian authors should have found millions of devotees? Let the Moslims themselves describe their own religion for us; just as the Jewish and Christian religions are falsely represented by the heathen and Protestantism by Catholics, so every religion is misrepresented by its antagonists. "We are mortals, subject to error; especially where religious matters are concerned, we often allow ourselves to be grossly misled by passion." ”

“ In order to complete your mediæval dream with a scene from daily life, you have only to leave the mosque by the Bâb Dereybah, one of its twenty-two gates, where you may see human merchandise exhibited for sale by the slave-brokers, and then to have a glance, outside the wall, at a camel caravan, bringing firewood and vegetables into the town, led by Beduins whose outward appearance has as little changed as their minds since the day when Mohammed began here to preach the Word of Allah. ”

“ Nothing short of absolute conflict with the teachings of religion makes them doubt the genuineness of a poet's representations; and in any case, all these heroes flying and striding through air, sky, sea and forest, with their miraculous palaces and magic armies, are for the Achehnese actual persons of an actual past. ”

“ But all agree that Mohammedans, disinclined as they are to reject their own traditions of thirteen centuries and to adopt a new religious faith, become ever better disposed to associate their intellectual, social, and political life with that of the modern world. Here lies the starting point for two divisions of mankind which for centuries have lived their own lives separately in mutual misunderstanding, from which to pursue their way arm in arm to the greater advantage of both. ”

“ Each energetic ulama travelled to and fro in the sphere where he possessed or hoped to acquire influence, proclaiming with renewed vehemence the principles of the holy war. The better to prepare for the great work, ruinous mosques were to be repaired, religious worship held in high esteem, and the transgressions of the people checked. The godless pleasures of the Achehnese must come to an end. ”

“ The whole individual, domestic, social, and political life as it developed in the three centuries during which the simple Arabian religion was adjusted to the complicated civilization of the great nations of that time, that all life was theoretically justified by representing it as the application of minute laws supposed to have been elaborated by Mohammed by precept and example.
Thus tradition gives invaluable material for the knowledge of the conflict of opinions in the first centuries, a strife the sharpness of which has been blunted in later times by a most resourceful harmonistic method. ”

“ Equally absurd would it be to reckon the latter only as forming a part of the literature while excluding the former.
Authors and copyists.Nor indeed can it be said that an Achehnese work is better protected against change by the written than by the oral form of transmission. Every copyist claims an author's privilege to modify the original, just as the reciter does in transmission by word of mouth. Should he fail to embellish the original according to his own taste and ideas, he would be looked on by the Achehnese as lacking both intelligence and literary talent. ”

“ It has never been contested that the community, whose agreement was the test of truth, should not consist of the faithful masses, but of the expert elect. In a Christian church we should have spoken of the clergy, with a further definition of the organs through which it was to express itself: synod, council, or Pope. Islâm has no clergy, as we have seen; the qualification of a man to have his own opinion depends entirely upon the scope of his knowledge or rather of his erudition. ”

“ Jeumalōy, whose tomb is still to be seen not far from the principal mosque of Acheh, is universally revered as a saint by the Achehnese. Pòteu Uëʾ, for whose sake his younger brother drove out the sayyid, and that too with the help of subjects turned from their allegiance, is the founder of the present Achehnese dynasty. No wonder then that the scions of the royal house of Acheh will brook no mention of the Hikayat Pòchut Muhamat and regard it as a forbidden thing for anyone of their family to order or listen to its recitation. ”

“ So the Roman Catholic and many Protestant Churches have in their organizations and in their dogmatic systems eternalized institutions and ideas whose unchangeableness has come to retard spiritual progress.
Among all conservative factors of human life religion must necessarily be the most conservative, were it only because its aim is precisely to store up and keep under its guardianship the treasures destined for eternity to which we have alluded. Now, every new period in the history of civilization obliges a religious community to undertake a general revision of the contents of its treasury. ”

“ Moreover, the veneration of human beings was favoured by some forms of mysticism; for, like many saints, many mystics had their eccentricities, and it was much to the advantage of the mystic theologians if the vulgar could be persuaded to accept their aberrations from normal rules of life as peculiarities of holy men. But Ijmâʿ did more even than tradition and mysticism to make the veneration of legions of saints possible in the temples of the very men who were obliged by their ritual law to say to Allah several times daily: "Thee only do we worship and to Thee alone do we cry for help." ”

“ In the beginning the trust of the Achehnese in God's help seemed now and then to be justified. Where they met with reverses the representatives of religion were ever ready with their explanation. "He that will carry on a holy war with assurance of victory must begin," said they, "by turning from all his iniquities.' Small wonder that Allah did not always cause the arms of Acheh to be victorious since he had so much maʿsiët (trangression) to visit on the people. ”

“ The extensive political program of Islâm, developed during the first centuries of astounding expansion, has yet not prevented millions of Mohammedans from resigning themselves to reversed conditions in which at the present time many more Mohammedans live under foreign authority than under their own. The acceptance of this change was facilitated by the historical pessimism of Islâm, which makes the mind prepared for every sort of decay, and by the true Moslim habit of resignation to painful experiences, not through fatalism, but through reverence for Allah’s inscrutable will. ”

“ The foreigner, who had dealings with the Achehnese, as soon as he found himself in difficulties, sought vainly for some authority that might redress his wrongs. Such indeed has been the situation since the seven- teenth Century when the Sultanate of Acheh lost its control over the great chiefs of the State and over their dependents; but even when the power of the Achehnese princes was at its height the foreigner could find no security for life or property in the country. ”

“ More will be gained for Christianity by friendly intercourse with Mohammedans than by slander; above all Christians who live in the East must not, as is too often the case, give cause to one Turk to say to another who suspects him of lying or deceit: 'Do you take me for a Christian?' ('putasne me Christianum esse') . In truth, the Mohammedans often put us to shame by their virtues; and a better knowledge of Islâm can only help to make our irrational pride give place to gratitude to God for the undeserved mercy which He bestowed upon us in Christianity. ”

“ To any one who has made himself acquainted with the political and social life of the Achehnese, his remarks on pp. 17–18 of his memorandum will sound as audacious as they are untrue: "Nor indeed is there any trace of ancient popular customs in conflict with Islam, at least in the sense that would indicate a customary law having its existence in the consciousness of the people, as is the case for example with the characteristic institutions regarding the law of person and inheritance which we meet with among the Malays on the west coast of Sumatra. ”

“ A knowledge alone of the orthodox system of Islâm, however complete, would give us an even more inadequate idea of the actual world of catholic Islâm than the notion we should acquire of the spiritual currents moving the Roman Catholic world by merely studying the dogma and the canonical law of the Church of Rome. ”