When C. Snouck Hurgronje made his famous ethnography of Aceh at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and in the midst of the fierce anti-colonial war, he was centrally concerned with the place of the sjari’at. According to Snouck, Islamic law was honored, but only to be ignored.. Achenese, he said, were fierce Muslims. It was in the name of Islam and in the name of Aceh that Acehnese opposed the Dutch. Snouck was an Islamacist who had made important studies of Islam before coming to Aceh. For him, the difference between adat and Islam was evident. It was evident too for Acehnese but not in the same way. For Snouck, adat ruled. But, at the same time, Acehnese insisted that there was no difference between adat and Islam. The latter was said to be the guide to the former. Whatever the former consisted of, then, was legitimated by Islam. The sjari’at in that sense was present to Acehnese from the start and continued to be so.
Reformist ulama who came mainly from outside Aceh and who pointed to the sinfulness of gambling and of ignoring ibadah generally were first highly respected and then forgotten. Their success testifies to the importance of sjari’at. Their eventual failure was, however, not the forgetting of the sjari’at; it was, rather, the taking of it for granted.
This was the state of things until the uléebelang leadership of the war faltered. It was, of course, prominent ulama who led the major resistance. But one cannot say that during the war Acehnese society was transformed by the application of Islamic law. It was primarily the doctrine of the jihad that prevailed. This was a jihad different from that practiced today in, for instance, Palestine. There, the martyrs of the war against Israel are memorialized before they make their dramatic last gestures. In Aceh, the jihad meant direct reception into paradise. One did not hear of the names of these martyrs in the years I spent in Aceh (1962-64; 1969) nor are they consecrated in Acehnese literature of the time. Apparently the jihad in this form was not revived in the years of struggle against the Indonesian army.
If Acehnese before the colonial war thought that adat and religion were entirely compatible it indicates their confidence in their society. Then came the brutality of the war, the disruption of Acehnese society, which meant not its reform but, at first, turning one’s back on the world and Aceh as its instance. The jihad in the form it took, in the absence of memorialization, indicated a profound shock. I do not think it is right to speak of ‘trauma’ in the strict sense, however. Trauma indicates a memory that still lives but cannot be assimilated to ordinary life. Here one thinks rather of turning one’s back on worldly life altogether. Eventually, when it became possible in the 1920’s and later, to engage in a remaking of Aceh, it was assumed again that the sjari’at would hold a central place. This is attested to not by the administration of the law outside of the provisions pertaining to ibadah, but by the leadership role of the ulama. The reconstitution of Acehnese society took place under the leadership of modernist ulama. If Western style education and the speaking of a national language, Indonesian, were the dominant concerns, they were acceptable because they were vouched for by Islamic leaders. The idea of the syari’at in this changed context can be seen by what Abu Beureuëh told me in the 1960’s. It meant that ibadah would be encouraged and protected. No honking of horns during the Friday prayers and so on. He did not envision an enforcement of Islamic law or encourage an expansion of the sjari’at courts. Perhaps this was because in 1962, just after his descent from the mountains (of course he never surrendered) though still by far the most influential figure in Aceh, he did not have the means to go further. But I do not think this was the reason. Rather, Abu Beureuëh still had confidence in Achenese society. He thought that the perfection of the local economy and the encouragement of education would lead to a prosperous Aceh where, of itself, Islam would once again be co-terminous with ‘Aceh’.
Abu Beureuëh no longer much used the then outmoded term ‘adat’. The idea of society itself had changed. The unself-conscious assumption that the forms of society were forever and that there was a basic rightness to life whatever shape it took, was lost with the colonial war. But there was still confidence that Aceh could regain itself under Acehnese Islamic leadership. The syari’at, of course, was assumed to be its basis. Even when, by the end of the 1930’s, Acehnese society was stable, the changes in the economy which brought with it an apparent prosperity, had not been fully assimilated into social life. The place of men in the village economy, in particular, left them uneasy. There was an underlying dissatisfaction which expressed itself in the need for a more pronounced religious authority. The Fujiwara organization, led by followers of Daud Beureuëh, aided the coming of the Japanese. It was hoped that there would be a further transformation of Acehnese society. Colonial power, under which stability had been attained, was the chief impediment. The ulama hoped they would have greater influence under the Japanese.. The ulama of the 1940’s wanted a greater share in government and were disappointed when they did not get it from the invaders.
This might make it seem as though the more thorough implementation of the sjari’at was central. But it was not in the name of the syari’at that Acehnese fought against the return of the Dutch, but in the name of merdeka. There was still a confidence in the possibility of a prosperous, Islamic Aceh without the need to think of remaking it on the basis of a thorough administration of the syari’at.. There was, in other words, a continued assumption that the shape of Acehnese society was already informed by the sjari’at and that those who understood it had a view of Acehnese welfare that could include the modernization of education and the economy in particular. There was, at the time, an opening to the world: the Islamic world and the Western world. The second would not corrupt the first. The guarantee was the proper leadership.
If, today, there are many who turn to the syari’at it seems to me, from a secularist position (and without extended recent experience in Atjeh, I must warn you) for certain reasons. There is still the assumption that the sjari’at, always present in Aceh, must continue to be so. But the certainty of this assumption has been shaken. First, there are no ulama who, from their own prestige, can command the allegiance of most of Aceh in the same way as Daud Beureuëh from the 1930’s through the 1960’s or, differently, Teuku Sjech diTiro during the war against the Dutch. The inability of individual ulama to command allegiance on a wide scale has meant that a symbol of their authority, the law itself, has become the issue to be debated.
More fundamentally, however, the urge to have the syari’at govern everayday life in a way that is unprecedented in its details is because everyday life itself has become questioned by the years of brutal treatment by the Indonesian army, by the exploitation of Aceh’s resources by the Suharto family and those around them and finally, of course, by the aggression of the forces of nature against the northern tip of Sumatra.
Finally, the emergent conclusion that there is not only a difference but a contradiction between being Acehnese and being Indonesian left open the definition of the first term. Aceh from the 1930’s on had been modernized and nationalized, that is to say, made Indonesian. Just as in the rest of Indonesia, there was initially no contradiction felt between regional and national identity. But that changed with the aggressions Aceh has suffered. What makes the debate about the syari’at difficult, it seems to me, is not a conflict about the value of the sjari’at but unclarity about the nature of Aceh that is the natural result of Aceh’s history. The destruction of Acehnese society in the 19th century, the reality that this history has been severed from the restructuring of society that took place under modernist Islam and the hollowing out of Indonesian nationalist identity as a result of conflicts with the national state have created confusion.
Who, then, are ‘the Acehnese’? In the 19th century no one asked that question. Aceh was a sultanate and identity was not problematic. Today it is different. Are Achenese those who speak Acehnese even if their parents did not? Are they those born in Aceh even if their parents came from other provinces? How many Acehnese parents do you need to claim being Acehnese? And do any of these identifications have the force to ensure a place that distinguishes one from merely being an ‘Indonesian’. The latter’s hold is considerably weakened politically, but socially and culturally, as a result of the revolution and the years afterwards, for better or for worse, Aceh belongs to Indonesia.
To claim a separate identity one might want then to turn to Islam which seems to avoid the difficulties just outlined. But the time when one could make the association between ‘Islam’ and ‘Aceh’ unself-consciously is past. It is the result of the horrifying experiences of the most recent generations. The cost of failure of such an association is deep division between those who accept it and those who do not with consequences that cannot be foreseen. However, the syari’at is still assumed in Aceh even if its exact place is now disputed. If Acehnese identity and Acehnese confidence in their society is restored, it will play an important role. But I think that role will be all the greater if the syari’at continues to have basically a symbolic value. When force, even if it is legitimate force, is used, fear is once again introduced into Aceh. It is precisely fear that undermines the confidence that is needed to feel that one’s way of life is basically right. There is the danger, then, of the forceful implementation of the syari’at becoming counter productive. Aceh now has known more than thirty years of fear. But Aceh remained relatively united as the elections showed. Now, the increased presence of the police, no matter if it is a religious police, threatens a division in society. Iran of course will serve as an example for those on both sides of the question. ***
James T Siegel
This article had published in the Gelombang Baru cultural journal, 2009