Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/274

 as well as in Java make it even on behalf of their attendants (rakan), though the law by no means obliges them to do so.

This almost exaggerated observance of the rules as to the pitrah is attributable to the popular estimation of the fasting month as a period of expiation. It is supposed that small involuntary omissions in respect of the law of the fast are made good by the fulfilment of the pitrah. Thus the contributions are paid with the utmost readiness, in the hope that thereby the annual account with Allah may be duly balanced.

As we have already seen, the teungku, who according to the law should only act as a salaried collector or distributor of the pitrah, as a matter of fact appropriates the proceeds himself. Thus the great mass of the people are left to imagine that the pitrah is in its entirety an obligatory payment for the teungku’s benefit. Such is also the case in Java with the desa-priests and desa-chiefs as they are called by the Dutch.

It is understood that the law is not content with the simple collection of the pitrah. It insists that every one who contributes should personally or by agent give evidence of his intent to conform to what the law prescribes. The Achehnese, who does not himself know by heart any suitable formula for the expression of this intent, gets the teungku to whom he brings the rice to dictate one in his place. It usually runs somewhat as follows: "This my pitrah for two (or three etc.) persons, which the Lord has required of me for this year, I now give (or make over) to thee, Oh Teungku!.

Some add, "at they determination oh Teungku!" in which there lurks the suggestion that the distribution of the pitrah according to the law is confidently entrusted to him; but most teungkus refuse to receive the pitrah on such conditions. They believe that the sin of unlawful distribution (or rather appropriation of almost the whole of the pitrah to their own use) would be visited on them, the teungkus, if the giver expressed any such condition, whereas they hold themselves free of all responsibility if the pitrah is given to them unconditionally.

Many make the contribution in money instead of rice; this they do both for the teungku's sake, as he would otherwise be at a loss how to dispose of so much rice, and also to facilitate the transport of the pitrah itself. The Shafiʾite law requires, it is true, that the pitrah should