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Chèh Saman[1], who of late years was conspicuous in Great Acheh as a leader in the holy war until his death, was the son of a simple leubè from Tirò[2]. The foremost member of an old family of pandits in that place was within the memory of man the Teungku di Tirò par excellence, also sometimes known as Teungku Chiʾ di Tirò. Such was till his death in 1886, Teungku Muhamat Amin, and his relative, the energetic Chèh Saman, was his right-hand man. The latter indeed succeeded him; for at Muhamat Amin's death his eldest son (a learned man who has since died), was still too young to fill his father's place. A younger son of Muhamat Amin is now panglima under the supervision of the well-known Teungku Mat Amin, the son of Chèh Saman. [This Mat Amin with about a hundred of his followers perished in 1896 at the surprise of Aneuʾ Galōng by the Dutch troops.]
In Acheh Proper, before the war, the principal centres of teaching were situated in the neighbourhood of the capital and in the sagi of the XXVI Mukims.
Teungku di Lam Nyòng, whose proper name was Nyaʾ Him (short for Ibrahim), attracted even more followers than his father and grandfather before him, and drew them by hundreds to Lam Nyòng, eager to hear his teaching. He had himself studied at Lam Baʾét (in the VI Mukims) with a guru who owed his name of Teungku Meusé (from Miçr = Egypt) to his sojourn in that country, and at Lam Bhuʾ under a Malay named Abduççamad. Very many Achehnese ulamas and almost all the teachers of the North and East Coasts owe their schooling wholly or in part to him.
After the death of a certain Muhamat Amin, known as Teungku Lam Bhuʾ, and of his successor the Malay Abuççamad, who had wedded the former's sister, a period of energy in learning was followed by one of inactivity. This was all changed by the appearance of Chèh Marahaban[3]. His father was an unlearned man from Tirò, who settled later on the West Coast. Marahaban studied in Pidië (in Simpang among other places) and later on at Mekka, where he acted as haji-shaikh[4] (guide and protector of pilgrims to Mekka and Medina) to his fellow-
