Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/193

 The Mohammedan law is averse to allowing women to wed with men of a rank lower than their own, and marriages of the daughters of sayyids with those who are not sayyids are everywhere of extremely rare occurrence. In Acheh hardly anyone not a sayyid would venture on such a union, as it is thought certain that the vengeance of God would overtake him even in this life.

The daughters of sayyids must thus always wait until fortune sends a sayyid to their gampōng; they are then presented for his acceptance with much rivalry, nay even pressed upon him. And such daughters are not few, for the sayyids are fond of travelling and always ready to contract marriages even during a short residence in a gampōng, so that they beget a numerous progeny.

In accordance with the adat the sayyids' daughters are, like other women, prohibited as a rule from leaving their own gampōngs, so that there are to be found among them virgins of a comparatively advanced age, otherwise an unknown phenomenon in Acheh.

From the Achehnese, who is a_ niggard to all other strangers, the sayyid meets a ready welcome, and he need take little pains, even though he holds no office and has no employment, to secure his own subsistence. This is supplied him by the woman he marries or the host whom he makes glad with the blessing of his presence.

In practice it may be said that the Achehnese fears the sayyid more than the Creator. This is due to his believing that Allah reserves his punishments for the hereafter and is illimitably merciful in the enforcement of his law against the faithful, whereas the curse of the sayyids takes effect here below without any hope of mercy. No Achehnese will readily so much as lift a finger against a sayyid; one who would dare to take a sayyid's life would not hesitate to cut his own father's throat.

The sayyid gives orders in his neighbour's house as if it were his own, and no one resents it. Under the protection of an energetic sayyid even a European might travel in safety throughout Acheh.

Names of various sayyids appear in the list of the sultans of Acheh, and in several places members of the families of sayyids have succeeded in raising themselves to the position of a kind of ulèëbalangs. None however has employed the great respect of the Achehnese for his descent with more political tact and more success than Sayyid Abdurrahman Zahir, usually known as Habib Abdurrahman.

In the beginning of his residence in Acheh he claimed special atten-