Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/40

 political fragments it may be said that hardly a single one of the innovations they comprise has passed from document into actuality, but simply that the state of things they reveal as already in being has continued its existence.

It is not difficult to distinguish in these edicts the old and already established conditions from the new ones which they purport to introduce.

The principal features of this old status were the great independence of the numerous chiefs and the all-prevailing influence of traditional custom.

The new elements may be classified as follows:

1°. Attempts at an extension of the authority of the Sultan by allotting to him, the king of the port, a certain control over the succession of the other chieftains of the land—a matter which for the rest is treated in these edicts as inviolable—over the disputes of these chiefs with one another, or those between the subjects of different chiefs, and over the interests of strangers. In a word, some very moderate efforts at centralization of authority, having it for their object to make the Sultan primus inter pares; the establishment of a kind of indication of fealty, meant to serve as an open and visible reminder of the existence of such a relation between Sultan and chiefs.

2°. Certain rules intended to bring about a stricter observance of Muhammedan law.

3°. Regulations dealing with trade (then confined to the capital) the shares of certain officials established in the capital in the profits drawn from this trade by the king of the port, the court ceremonial, the celebration of great religious festivals etc.

During my residence in Acheh I obtained copies of a number of other sarakatas not included among those published by Van Langen. They were as a rule lengthy documents and most of them bore dates. The following are examples: one of Meukuta Alam or Eseukanda (Is-Muda, dated 1607, revived by the princess Sapiatōdin in 1645, intended kandar) to regulate the court ceremonial and solemnities at festivals (very rich in details); two of Meukuta Alam = Eseukanda (Iskandar) Muda, dated respectively 1635 and 1640 (sic); one of Jamalul-Alam (in Achehnese Jewumaloj) dated 1689, revived by Alaédin Juhan, the second prince of the latest dynasty, in 1752; one of Alaédin Mahmut dated 1766; and certain undated edicts of Sapiatōdin, Amat Shah Juhan (the first prince of the latest dynasty) and Badrudin Asém (Hashim), all