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named Malém Itam or Pakèh Abdulwahab[1], in which are collected the principal rules of the law in regard to marriage, and the original of which is fully a century old. Another Achehnese named Mohammad Zain bin Jalāluddin, from whose hand there appeared in Malay an insignificant essay on a subordinate part of the ritual,[2] and one of the innumerable editions of Sanusi's small manual of dogma,[3] appears also to have been the author of a Malay treatise on the Mohammedan law of marriage,[4] which enjoyed the honour of being lithographed in Constantinople in A. H. 1304 under the name Bāb an-nikāḥ (Chapter on marriage). I do not know in what connection this writer stands with Jalāluddin (= Teungku di Lam Gut, see p. 28 below) who in A. H. 1242 (A. D. 1826–27) wrote the Tambihō rapilin (see Chap. II, N°. LXXXVI). It is probably due to chance that his works have not been consigned to oblivion like those of so many others. They are not specially marked by any redeeming traits and are also devoid of local colour, with the exception of an appendix two pages in length attached to Mohammad Zains Bāb an-nikāḥ, containing precepts designed to suit the requirements of Achehnese life.
The most characteristic of these precepts concerns the ṭaqlīd (Ach. teukeulit) i. e. resorting to the authority of the imam of the Ḥanafite school in respect to the marriage of a girl who is a minor and without father or grandfather. The object of the author is to give legal sanction to the peculiar Achehnese custom of the baléʾ meudeuhab.[5]
Study has not declined in Acheh.The study of the teaching of Islam, of what is generally described
- ↑ I find no clear indication of the author's name in the three copies with which I am acquainted (Berlin Royal Library, Schumann V, 6, and Malay MSS. of the Leiden library, Nos 1752 and 1774).
- ↑ See Van den Berg's Verslag, p. 7, N° 36.
- ↑ See Van den Berg's Verslag, pp. 8–9, N° 45.
- ↑ I cannot recall the source of this book, though I feel certain that I have heard or read of it: as to its having been written by an Achehnese, that is beyond all doubt.
- ↑ See Vol I p. 347 et seq. The passage in question runs as follows: (
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