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

 as "Mohammedan law", has not declined in Acheh, though it has received somewhat of a check during the disturbances of the past 30 years. If such learning is of little value as a qualification for offices such as those of kali and teungku meunasah, that is due partly to the adat which makes these offices hereditary, and partly to the fact that the chiefs do not want as kalis too energetic upholders of the sacred law, and to the reluctance of all true pandits to strengthen the chiefs' hands by pronouncing their crooked dealings straight.

Such branches of study as commentaries on the Qurān (Tafsīr, Ach. Teupeusé) or the sacred tradition (Ḥadīth, Ach. Hadih) which in the earliest times of Islam formed the pièce de résistance of all learning, as it was from them that the people derived their knowledge of the rules of law, have now become more or less ornamental, since the study of the law has been made independent of them. Such ornamental branches of learning are however highly esteemed even in Acheh. Proficient teachers occasionally give instruction in them, but no one thinks of studying these until he has mastered the essentials of Pikah and Usuy.

The student life of Mohammedans in the Archipelago would furnish an attractive subject for a monograph. The pěsantrèns of Java have indeed been described in a number of essays, but in these nothing is to be found but a superficial view of the question, which has never been closely examined.

A capital and wide-spread error in regard to the schools of the Mohammedan religion in these countries is that they are schools of priests. This is absolutely untrue; not only because there are no such things as Mohammedan "priests", but also because, even if we admit the erroneous term "priests" or "clergy" as applied to the pěngulus, naibs, modins, lěbès etc. in Java, the pěsantrèns cannot in any sense be regarded as training-schools for the holders of these offices. Most