THE ACHEHNESE - Acehbooks.org

extirpate the heretics. The teacher and many of his faithful disciples
set a seal to their belief by their death. [Notwithstanding this, T.
Teureubue found a successor in his disciple Teungku Gade, also known
as Teungku di Geudong or (from the name of the gampong where he
lives) Teungku Teupin Raya. In the centre of this gampong is the tomb
of Teungku Teureubue, surrounded by a thick and lofty wall. The
village is under the control of the teacher and is mainly peopled with
his disciples.]
Habib Scu- No such violent end overtook the Habib ') Seunagan, who died some
years ago. He derived his name from the scene of his labours on the
West Coast to the South of Meulaboh. Before he had attained celebrity
he was known as Teungku Peunado', after the gampong in Pidie where
he was born.
The teaching of this heretical mystic is known to me only from
information furnished by his opponents, and therefore necessarily very
one-sided. He is said to have disseminated the teaching of Hamzah
Pansuri, but the statements made regarding his interpretation of the
Quran and the law show it to have been in no special degree mystical,
although greatly at variance with the official teaching. He is reported
for instance to have held that one might handle the Quran even when
in a state of ritual impurity, and that a man might have nine wives
at once, opinions anciently upheld by the Zahirites. 2 ) He is also supposed
to have had his own special conception of the qiblah (the direction
in which the worshipper must turn his face in the daily ritual prayers),
and a dissenting confession of faith, viz. "There is no God but Allah,
this Habib is truly the body of the Prophet." x )
Pidie and some portions of the West Coast, such as Susoh and
Meulaboh, are still regarded as districts where the eleumec sale flourishes.
| In Seunagan one Teungku di Krueng (ob. 1902) may be considered as
the spiritual successor of Habib Seunagan.]
Teungku di After this digression we must now turn back for a moment to an
Kuala. earlier period, not with the view of giving a complete history of Acheh­
nese theology, but to recall attention to a remarkable Malay, whom
1) The word Habib is here used in a sense unusual in Achehnese (see vol I p. 155)
namely in that of friend (of God); Habib Seunagan was not a sayyid.
2) See Die Zahiriten by Dr. I. Goldziher, Leipzig 1884; on p. 54 of this work we find
this view as to the touching of the Quran.
3) La ilaha illii ^llah, Habib nyb'e salt badan nabi.