Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/213

 high esteem, and the transgressions of the people checked. The godless pleasures of the Achehnese must come to an end.

They did not indeed require military service of every villager, but all had to hold themselves ready to lend assistance in case of need to the bands of volunteers posted in various places. They had also to be constantly prepared to assist in the construction of the kutas or forts occupied by these bands, to acquaint them with any danger that might threaten, to provide for their needs, and take before the teungku under whose jurisdiction they were, all complaints as to their behaviour.

These ulamas are in some respects more interesting to us than the sayyids. The former have not it is true that impregnable character which the latter borrow from their birth, and their prestige depends more largely on the respect which they personally inspire; they are also, as being Achehnese, more easily involved in party quarrels. But sayyids or other foreigners who are able and willing to play a political part in Acheh are only chance phenomena and not necessary components of Achehnese society, of which the ulamas form an indispensable element. The notable example of "the Habib", too, has proved that strangers are prone to abandon the cause when the fire grows too hot for them.

Teungku Tirò was par excellence a leader from the time of the "concentration" till the day of his death.

Tirò, a gampōng in Pidië, owes its reputation partly to the teaching in sacred subjects of which it is the seat, and partly to the number of distinguished ulamas whom it has produced. The latter, if not drawn elsewhere by marriages with women of other gampōngs, returned to their native place in their declining years, so that many of them lie buried there. To the sanctity of their tombs and the constant presence of influential ulamas the place owes the peculiar privileged position generally designated by the word bibeuëh.

Here the neighbouring chiefs have made over to the ulamas the maintenance of law and order, so that the adat has in this place had much less significance than elsewhere. These same chiefs have made no claim on the services of the people, they have respected Tirò as a place of refuge for such as had become involved in internal feuds, and