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the Pidië dialect) is employed in this sense. It is the equivalent of the Malay pěnghulu[1] = chief or lord, a title otherwise confined in Acheh to the prophet and his disciples etc.
Teungku Anjōng.The tomb at present most highly honoured in Acheh is that of Teungku Anjōng in Gampōng Jawa. It is the last resting-place of a certain Sayyid Abu Bakar bin Ḥusain Bil-Faqih, and has completely outshone the more ancient tomb of Teungku di Kuala alias Abdoraʾōh (Abdurraʾuf of Singkel) which enjoyed the highest reputation in former times.
Among the living in like manner we find a Habib kramat of the famous family of ʿAidarus[2], a half-crazy young man, the son of Teungku di Bukét. The father who also enjoyed a reputation for sanctity, was in conjunction with the lately deceased raja of Idi (vulg. Edi) the first pioneer of that district. A sister of this sanctified madman is in her turn so holy that her husband after co-habiting with her once, became very ill and has not since ventured to renew his marital rights.
Some members of another family of Sayyids from Mecca are settled in Pidië and used to make occasional journeys to Keumala, where the young sultan treated them with the highest honour.
Not by any means all of the sayyids of Acheh are theologians or pandits. Most of them devote themselves to trade or in later generations to agriculture, but they enjoy none the less the customary reverence based on religious feeling, even where their life is far from testifying to a devotional spirit on their part. Such is often the case not only with sayyids who have found their way over from Arabia in the guise of random adventurers, but also with those born in Acheh, who quickly make their own of Achehnese manners and vices. With them too these vices are usually more than ordinarily pronounced, as they are excessively spoilt from their earliest youth.
- ↑ Pěnghulu has a wide range in Malay, just as "imeum" in Achehnese. The Pěnghulu Masjid is quite a humble individual, a sort of sacristan of the mosque. The headmen of large villages are also called pěnghulus; but in some states the same title is given to an official whose position somewhat resembles that of the ulèëbalang in Acheh. Such for example was Sayyid Ali the Penghulu of Jelebu in the Malay Peninsula, who revolted against the hereditary Yam Tuan and became the ruler of that small independent state before it came under British protection. (Translator).
- ↑ A member of the same family lies buried at Luar Batang in Batavia. His tomb is widely venerated.
