Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/14



In July, 1891, I proceeded to Acheh in pursuance of instructions from the Netherlands-India Government to make a special study of the religious element in the political conditions of that country. During a residence in Arabia (1884–85) I had been in a position—especially at Mecca—to obtain an intimate knowledge of the influence of Mohammedan fanaticism upon the obstinate resistance of the Achehnese to Dutch rule; some time spent in direct relations with Achehnese on their own soil was required to round off the knowledge gained by me from literature and from my experience in the sacred city of the Arabs.

In Acheh I soon saw that the available data regarding the language, country and people fell far short of what was wanted, so I extended my enquiry beyonds the limits of my commission. In order to get at the very foundations of a knowledge of the influence of Islam upon the political, social and domestic life of the Achehnese, I took (so far as local conditions allowed me) that life in its entire range as the subject of my research. In February, 1892, I had got together enough preliminary matter for compiling a book; I worked up my materials at Batavia; and so, in 1893–94, first appeared the treatise which is now being again offered to the public in the form of an English translation.

When Mr. early in 1899, informed me of his project of translating the book and requested me to look through his version and give him the benefit of any amendments in the text which might seem to be needed, it was just the very time that the real conquest of Acheh was being commenced; and I—spending a great deal of my time in that country—was in an incomparably better position to investigate that old pirate-state than I had been in 1891 and 1892. Certainly had I begun to write my book in 1899, it would have differed in many respects from its actual form. Still, as the book was definitely