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In the XXV Mukims in like manner there flourished for a short time a tolerably learned head kali, Teungku Lam Paya[1], who died some years since. He enjoyed, at least in the later years of the sultanate, a certain precedence on official occasions, and was sometimes bidden to the Dalam, probably because he lived nearest at hand. His son, who succeeded him under the same title, is said not to be particularly learned in the law, but very ready of speech.
When the Dutch first came to Acheh, the chief kali of the XXVI Mukims was a man named Teungku Lam Gut, the grandfather on the mother's side of the present hatib (preacher) of the principal mosque at Kuta Raja. Born in Lam Gut and appointed as the successor of his father, who had some reputation for learning, he subsequently changed his abode, in consequence of his marriage, to Lam Bhuʾ close to the Dalam. Here he married his daughter to a scholar of Pidië named Chèh Marahaban, long a resident in Mecca, who was ulama and kali to the sovereign of the port[2] during the last years of the Sultanate. Teungku Lam Gut was thus able to rely in his official work on the superior knowledge of his son-in-law, for he himself though a man of sound intelligence was devoid of learning.
The principle of inheritance could not of course be applied to the kali-ship in the same degree as in the case of offices controlled by adat; still it was sometimes pushed to a great extremity. Thus it by no means rarely occurred that in the very smallest duties of his office the kali, like many a teungku meunasah,[3] had to invoke the assistance of some learned man of only second or third rank.
This is equally true of the ordinary kalis of the ulèëbalangship, who according to the intention of the centralizing ruler were supposed to be appointed by the chief kali, but as a matter of fact inherited their office as a family chattel, and were only hampered in their right of succession by the occasional interference of their ulèëbalangs. Accordingly we find side by side in all these offices functionaries without title and title-bearers without function.
- ↑ Not to be confused with his contemporary, the still greater pandit Teungku Lam Paya, who was distinguished from the kali of that name by the addition of the word ulama or além.
- ↑ Thus even in the rare cases where the Sultan of Acheh had need of the advice of those learned in the law, his real adviser was Cheh Marahaban and not Teuku Kali.
- ↑ See above p. 75.
