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claimants; indeed they go about begging through the whole country after the harvest. Such begging tours used to be the chief means of subsistence of the deserters from the Dutch forces in Acheh[1].
8°. The employment of part of the jakeuët for the "holy war" is called the "way of God" (sabīl Allah). Where it cannot be so employed it should, according to some authorities, be devoted to works of universal benefit to Mohammedans. This manner of employing it has (as we have seen when dealing with the political situation)[2] played a prominent part during the last twenty years. For the past ten years (1882–92) in particular, this portion of the jakeuët has been the mainstay of the constantly increasing power of the ulama party.
According to the letter of the Shafiʾite law, the jakeuët, after deduction of a suitable recompense for the first-mentioned class (the collectors and distributors), should be distributed in equal shares among the remaining classes, with this proviso, that a class not represented in the country should be regarded as non-existent.
It is easy to conceive that such a method of distribution would present almost insurmountable difficulties no matter how well it were administered. We have only to think of the distinction between the classes of the "poor" and the "needy," which is no more than legal hair-splitting, or the "travellers" and "debtors," who are creatures of chance and very unevenly distributed.
Nowadays there is hardly any Mohammedan country in which this tax is systematically collected and equally distributed. The nations of Islam are subjected to all kinds of secular taxes which the religious law brands under the name of maks as impious institutions and which, in conflict with doctrine, have made the jakeuët appear as a voluntary free offering.
Thus a Mohammedan, when he unstintingly sets apart his tenths of corn and gives them to one or other of the classes of persons who are entitled to them under the religious law, is regarded as specially devout. As a rule it is the expounders of the law or so-called "priests" that profit most by such gifts. In the Archipelago there is one special
- ↑ In addition to this privilege, the muʾalahs enjoy in Acheh great immunity both of person and property, for to slay or plunder a convert is regarded as an act of surpassing wickedness. For this reason the sultans and chiefs used to employ converts to collect and bring in their taxes.
- ↑ See above p. 176 et seq.
