15
states the case as though this faithful observance of Mohammedan law had existed originally in Acheh at an earlier epoch, while the few adats conflicting therewith had crept in later on during the period of anarchy and corruption. "The Achehnese chiefs", he goes on to say, "with whom we conferred, unanimously desired the maintenance of Islam and nothing more".
We shall see later on, when we come to examine the question in detail, that this comparison between an orderly past resting on the basis of the Mohammedan law and a disorderly present, is entirely chimerical and rests on false or inexactly stated data. These premisses for instance are false, that in earlier times many works on Mohammedan law were composed by Achehnese, that general ignorance now prevails as to the contents of these or that the wholly unlettered Teuku Malikōn Adé was supreme judge of the kingdom of Acheh. The ignorance of the chiefs in regard to Mohammedan law is wrongly explained; it is in fact an ignorance which they share with the rulers of most Mohammedan countries.
Nature of the popular and political institutions of Acheh.We postpone for the present the closer refutation of these extravagances. Let us now fix our attention on the fact that the non-Mohammedan institutions of the Achehnese, which we are now about to describe, and which taken together form a well-rounded whole, exhibit themselves to the scientific observer after comparison with those of other kindred peoples, as really indigenous and wholly suitable to the state of civilization in which the Achehnese have moved as long as we have known them. In vain shall we seek for any period in the history of Acheh in which we should be justified in surmising the existence of a different state of things. All that we know further of that history makes it patent that neither the efforts of the ulamas to extend the influence of the Mohammedan law, nor the edicts of certain princes whose authority over the interior was very limited and of short duration, were able to exercise more than a partial or passing influence on the genuinely national and really living unwritten laws.
The golden age of Acheh in which "the Mohammedan law prevailed" (see p. 16 of Mr. Der Kinderen's memorandum), or in which the Adat Meukuta Alam may be regarded as the fundamental law of the kingdom, belongs to the realms of legend. If we wish to become acquainted with the institutions of Acheh we must, in default of any written sources of information, devote ourselves to the study of their political
