Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/258

 blot out from his eternal book the calamities and adversity destined for the suppliant. Such a prayer is in Acheh only offered up by the special representatives of religion. Most of the adult males celebrate this night by a small and simple kanduri (kanduri beureʾat) in the meunasah of their gampōng. Some hold during the evening a special prayer, the seumayang teuseubèh (Arab. çalat at-tasābīḥ) or "service of praise". All assemble for this service, and one of those present is chosen to act as imam. This prayer resembles in essentials all other çalats, but is distinguished by the constant repetition of a certain tasbīḥ-formula known in Arabic as tasbīḥ in praise of the Creator, in each of the four parts into which it is divided.

Others perform, in place of this seumayang, what is called the seumayang hajat, prescribed as the introduction to special supplications addressed to the Deity. A seumayang hajat consists of two parts (rakʿah). During the malam beureuʾat three such prayers (thus comprising six rakʿahs) are sometimes offered up. Each of these has its particular motive, the first being for prolongation of life, the second for the necessary means of supporting life, and the third for a blissful end.

This kind of seumayang is however celebrated by the women with much greater zeal than by the men. They either perform the service of praise under a female imam or the "seumayang hajat" each one for herself.

The end of this 8$th$ month, and in particular the three last days, are marked by an extraordinary activity owing to the preparations for the Puasa or Fasting Month. We have seen above that it was of old the custom in Acheh to fix the beginning of the fasting month (in other words the day of the new moon following immediately on Shaʿban) by calculation. The efforts of Habib Abdurrahman and other zealots to introduce the ruʾya or actual observation of the new moon as the only lawful method met with little sympathy. In Pidië there has prevailed for many years a difference of opinion as to the determination of the commencement of the Puasa, resulting in quarrels between the various gampōngs and actual discrepancies in their calendars.

The three sagis followed the usage of the capital, where the first day of Ramadhan was made known so long beforehand, that everyone