Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/166

 the offices, since it is purely religious in character and almost uniform in all such sealed documents.

To restore mosques which have fallen into disrepair, to build new ones, to compel his subjects to perform the public prayers and especially the Friday service, and observe the fasts in the month appointed, such are the chief duties of an ulèëbalang according to the sarakatas with the chab sikureuëng.

From this it is abundantly clear that the sultans under whom the original models were composed had them drafted by ulamas who stood high in their favour, and whose influence in the country was not a negligeable factor. Their employment for this purpose gratified the religious zeal of the ulamas and flattered their vanity, making them believe that they were carrying out a work of great importance; but for practical politics their labour was entirely thrown away.

The ulèëbalangs, then, regarded these documents as nothing more than embellishments which they were glad to possess, but could do without if occasion required. The one object which the Sultans imagined they would attain by means of these deeds of recognition, viz. some influence in the choice of the successor, was never actually reached. A new title-bearer did not report himself to the capital until the most influential men in his district had agreed on his appointment, or in other words satisfied themselves that he was according to the adat the lawful next of kin to the deceased ulèëbalang, and suffered from no moral or physical defect which rendered him unfit to hold office.

In the decadent period many ulèëbalangs and other chiefs found the lustre to be derived from the possession of the nine-fold seal not worth the trouble and the inevitable expense connected with it, such as doing homage to the sultan, gifts to officials and writers etc. They thus entered on office without any chab sikureuëng, or were content with keeping in evidence the deeds of appointment executed by former sultans in favour of one or more of their forefathers.

The position was the same, though on a very much smaller scale, as that of the Mohammedan kingdoms during the decay of the khalifate of the Abbasides. While the latter were hardly masters in their own palace, we find in Egypt, Syria etc. one prince thrusting another from his throne and robbing him of his provinces, and finally in his own good time going and demanding at Bagdad a solemn confirmation of