Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/50

 neglect the èleumèë's; should he be ignorant of these, he seeks the aid of such as are well versed in them.

From the point of view of the religious teacher, there is a great difference in the manner in which these various èleumèës are regarded. Some of them are classified as sihé (Arab. siḥr) i. e. witchcraft, the existence and activity of which is recognized by the teaching of Islam, though its practise is forbidden as the work of the evil one. It is just as much sihé to use even permissible methods of èleumèë for evil ends, such as the injury or destruction of fellow-believers, as to employ godless means (such as the help of the Devil or of infidel djéns), although it be for the attainment of lawful objects. The strict condemnation of the èleumèë sihé by religious teaching does not, however, withhold the Achehnese, any more than the Javanese or the Arabs, from practising such arts. Hatred for an enemy and the love of women generally that of the forbidden kind) are the commonest motives which induce them to resort to èleumèës of the prohibited class.

The formulas of prayer and the methods recommended in the orthodox Arab kitabs as of sovereign force are such as might also well be classified under the head of witchcraft, but they are regarded by the Believers as ordained of the Creator. Nor do the Achehnese teachers confine this view to such mystic arts as are marked with the Arabic seal; they also readily employ purely Achehnese material or such as smacks of Hindu influence, so long as they fail to detect in it a pagan origin.

An important source of information in regard to the mystic arts of which we now speak, as practised at the present time in Acheh, is a work called Taj-ul-mulk, printed at Cairo in 1891 (A. H. 1309) and at Mekka in 1893 (A. H. 1311). It was written in Malay by the Achehnese pandit Shaikh Abbas i. e. Teungku Kuta Karang (as to whom see Vol. I pp, 183 et seq., Vol. II Chapter II § 4 etc.) at the instance of Sultan Mansō Shah (= Ibrahim, 1838–1870). It contains little or nothing that may not be found in other Arabic or Malay books of the same description, but furnishes a useful survey of the modes of calculating lucky times and seasons, of prognostications and of Native medical art and the methods of reckoning time which are in vogue in what we may call the literate circles of Acheh.

As the writer is an ulama, he of course abstains from noticing "branches of science" which give clear tokens of pagan origin.