Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/43

 Still more exclusively formal are the admonitions dispensed to the chiefs in the royal deeds of appointment. One might almost assert that the raja of Acheh who sanctioned the form of these documents must have charged his ulamas with the acceptable task of drawing them up.

Thus Acheh had sovereigns who were lauded to the skies, especially after their death, by ulamas and other pious persons who basked in the sun of their good deeds and who actually saw some of their own devout wishes realized; yet religion had little influence on the formation of her political system, less even than might be assumed from the dead letter of isolated edicts of the port-kings.

It requires no proof to show that not one of these cautious efforts at centralization of authority mentioned above under head 1°, seriously enough meant though they were, was eventually crowned with success. The most powerful sultans dared not go further than to claim a certain right of interference, constituting themselves as it were a supreme court of arbitration. It may at once be concluded how far the rest of the petty rulers of both sexes progressed in this direction, weak and indolent as they were in disposition and fully taken up with anxiety to maintain their authority in their own immediate circle. So far from lording it over the Achehnese chiefs, they were compelled to seek their favour so as not to lose their own position as kings of the ports.

Besides this it must be considered that though the Achehnese sovereigns might have gained some increase of prestige from the establishment of their authority in the interior, still this was not of sufficient importance to induce them to make great sacrifices to win it. It is the ports, let it be repeated, that constitute the wealth and strength of states such as these.

Where a port-king possesses the means and the energy to extend what he has already got, he prefers to stretch his covetous hand towards other ports, and tries to divert their trade to himself or to render them tributary. This he finds much better than meddling with the districts, desert and inhospitable both in a spiritual and material sense, which hide the sources of his kualas or river-mouths.

Nor do these rulers endeavour to ensure the permanence of their dominion in other ports which they have subdued by taking as its basis the introduction of an orderly form of government. The conquerors are content with the recognition of their supremacy and the payment of dues.

Thus it is very easy to show how the rajas of Acheh during the