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be in the pondok or pěsantrèn" always carries with it in Java the notion of being a stranger[1]. In Acheh the word meudagang[2], which originally signifies "to be a stranger, to travel from place to place", has passed directly from this meaning to that of "to be engaged in study."
Thus it happens that most of the learned in Great Acheh have spent the greater part of their student life in Pidië, while vice versâ the studiously inclined in Pidië and on the East Coast amass their capital of knowledge in Great Acheh[3].
Achehnese schools of repute.In the territory of Pidië in the wider sense of the word[4], there were, before the coming of the Dutch to Acheh, certain places which were in some measure centres of learned life, where many muribs (the Achehnese name for "student", from the Arab. murīd) both from the country itself and from Acheh used to prosecute their studies. Such were Langga, Langgò, Sriweuë, Simpang, Ië Leubeuë (= Ayer Labu). Tirò, which has in these latter days acquired a widespread celebrity from the two teungkus of that place who took a prominent part in the war against the Dutch, was from ancient times less famed for the teaching given there than for the great number of learned men whom it produced and who lived there[5]. Tirò was as it were sanctified by the presence of so many living ulamas and the holy tombs of their predecessors. None dared to carry arms in this gampōng even in time of war; and the hukōm or religious law was stronger here than elsewhere, while its enemy the adat was weaker. Growing up amid such surroundings, many young men feel themselves led as it were by destiny to the study of the sacred law.
- ↑ In Bantěn this principle is pursued so far that boys are even sent for their elementary studies (the recitation of the Qurān) to a pondok outside their own village; but in other parts of Java as well as in Acheh this is exceptional.
- ↑ Ureuëng dagang always means "stranger" and is usually applied to foreign retail traders and especially to Klings; meudagang has now no other meaning than that of "to study" and ureuëng meudagang means "a student."
- ↑ Thus there is a teacher at Ië Leubeuë (Ayer Labu) called Teungku di Acheh or Teungku Acheh, since he pursued his studies for a long time in Acheh, Others generally take their names from the gampōng in which they reside or were born, even though they may have travelled elsewhere to seek instruction.
- ↑ The Achehnese give the name of Pidië to the whole of the territory which formerly belonged to the kingdom of that name, i. e. almost the whole of the North Coast with its hinterland, and include under the name Timu (the East, as reckoned from the capital of Acheh) all that we call the North and East Coast.
- ↑ Vol I p. 178.
