THE ACHEHNESE - Acehbooks.org

CHAPTER I.
LEARNING AND SCIENCE.
§ i. The practice of the three branches of Mohammedan
teaching and its preliminary study in Acheh.
In Acheh, as in all countries where Islam prevails, there is, properly The learning
speaking, but one kind of science or learning (Ach. eleume'e, from the
Arabic c ilmu), embracing all that man must believe and perform in
accordance with the will of Allah as revealed to his latest Apostle
Mohammad. It has in view the high and eminently practical purpose
of enabling man to live so as to please God, and opening for him the
door of eternal salvation. Beside it, all other human science is regarded
as of a lower order, and serving merely to the attainment of worldly
ends, both those which are permitted and those which are forbidden
by the sacred Law.
In Mohammad's time and for a little while after, this single branch
of knowledge was very simple and of small compass. The historical
development of Islam, however, very soon produced dissent and brought
new doctrines into being, so that the encyclopaedia of Mohammedan
lore attained very respectable proportions, and the teachers were com­
pelled in spite of themselves to concentrate their powers on single subjects.
To gain some insight into the encylopaedia of Mohammedan learning
we must examine the chief features of the history of its composition.
These I have already sketched in the introduction to my description
of learned life in the Mecca of to-day l ), so it need not be repeated
here. It is enough to recapitulate those branches of Mohammedan
learning which are to some extent practised in Acheh.
i) Mekka, Vol. II pp. 200—214.
II