Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/267

 is to say in grain of the sort which forms the staple foodstuff of the country. It is intended for the selfsame class of indigent folk who are supported by the zakāt, and its special object is to make it easier for them to participate in the feast which succeeds the fast. A person such as the Achehnese teungku ought properly only to act, in reference to the pitrah, as collector and distributor, receiving for his pains a suitable recompense payable from the pitrah itself.

The trawèh is a religious exercise, recommended to all during the nights of the fasting month. Each may perform it in solitude, but its celebration by the whole community under the leadership of an imam is more meritorious.

So says the law; but what is the actual practice in Acheh? There the trawèh is a religious exercise which the teungku has to perform for all, and the pitrah (which has not properly speaking the smallest connection with it), is a contribution for the benefit of the teungku, regarded as his recompense for the performance of the trawèh!

The trawèh farce is succeeded by the Qurān recitation. It is understood that the recital of the Qurān in conformity with the rules of the art (provided that the declaimer be in a certain state of ritual purity), is always a pious work which Allah will bless with a great reward. All good works, however, are much intensified in merit when performed during the month of Ramadhān. To repeat it once more, this is in the popular conception par excellence the month of religion. In this month the pious and the learned recite occasionally in the daytime a passage of the holy book, as much as they can find strength for; but the nightly recitation in the chapels is a universal custom. After the conclusion of the trawèh service in the meunasah, certain experts volunteer to recite passages from the Quran, and make it their endeavour if possible to bring to a conclusion (tamat) once or oftener during the month, the thirty subdivisions of the Book.

This most wearisome task they take by turns. Those who sit by usually have before them a copy of the Qurān, so that they may prompt and correct as they listen (simaʾ as the Achehnese say, from the Arab. simāʿ or more correctly samāʿ—"hearkening"). Such public recitation, wherein one always chants while all the rest listen in silence, is called meudarōih. In this also the teungku acts as conductor; the