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to that which had been in the possession of the deceased ulama. This chab sikureuëng could not not however raise this sayyid to the elevation which Teungku Tirò had attained without any such symbol of authority.
Teungku Kutakarang.Another rival of Teungku Tirò was Teungku Kutakarang, an active and clever but peculiar man.
Many years ago, before the coming of the Dutch to Acheh, his eagerness to pose as the teacher of doctrines different from those of the majority of Achehnese ulamas, made him in many circles the object of hatred or ridicule. He was always trying to entice away the disciples of others, and his own decisions on points of law were of so strange a character that he was once banished from the capital in the sultan's name.
The war gave him the opportunity, especially after the "concentration" of trying his fortune afresh. At first he worked side by side with or even under the leadership of Teungku Tirò, to whom he found himself constrained now and then to pay homage in public. In the circle of his intimates, however, he spoke contemptuously of the great man as Leubè[1] Saman, criticising his rules and decisions, and certainly felt but little sorrow at the death of that honoured and dreaded ulama.
Probably more from love of contradiction than from conviction, he taught that relations with those within the linie were not sinful, nay should even be encouraged. Such intercourse, he urged, is a source of profit to many, and moreover it gives an opportunity of inciting both Achehnese and foreign Mohammedans within the linie to disaffection; enterprizing persons can under colour of peaceful purposes strike their blow within the enemy's lines, plunder and slay and then retreat in safety.
Those ulamas departed from these and the like opinions whenever it served their purpose; at the least they pretended not to notice when others failed to adhere to them. It was as a rule only unimportant points of difference in their view to which their mutual disfavour gave a stronger significance.
Thus Teungku Tirò taught that the prohibition of Moslim law against the wearing of gold or silk (a rule universally transgressed in Acheh) applied also to combatants in the holy war, and that the latter must especially refrain from that offence, as the conversion from sin which
- ↑ See p. 71 above.
