Story 3

 The Great Mosque Baiturrahman

 

The Big Mosque was once the scene of very fierce fighting. In 1873, the Dutch General Köhler was killed here by an Acehnese sniper while he was overseeing the battle. The tree that stood next to him was for years afterwards known as the Köhler tree.

The original mosque that was located on this spot was burnt to the ground by the Dutch army, something that led to Acehnese religious leaders declaring a holy war against the Dutch. When the city of Kuala Raja was finally conquered by the Dutch, the colonial government started building a new mosque in 1879 in an attempt to appease the Acehnese. A lot of money was spent on the project.

Marble floors and iron cast ornaments were imported from Europe and the Dutch-Italian architect Bruins was given a free hand, a nice job for someone who, up till then, had only designed a couple of offices for the public works department. Up to the late 19th century, distinctive, uniquely Indonesian Islamic architecture existed on the Indonesian archipelago, incorporating Hindu and Buddhist influences. The traditional Indonesian mosque looked a bit like a Japanese pagoda, with pointed, terrace-style roofs.

Architect Bruins didn't care too much about these traditions. He found inspiration in the Ottoman and Mughal architecture, and the mosque he came up with was a fairytale-like building with a big black dome. Initially, it was ignored and detested by the Acehnese, but later it became something of a symbol for the city.

Not only was the building, which originally only had one dome, expanded to three and later even five domes, but its architecture was copied all over the Indonesian archipelago. Today, most mosques in Indonesia have domes like the Great Mosque of Banda Aceh instead of the traditional pointed roofs. The fact that this mosque was built by the Dutch shows their erratic behavior towards Islam.

 

The Dutch were totally unprepared for the holy war in which they suddenly found themselves. Endless talks in the Dutch parliament led to nothing but more confusion. Some Dutch politicians wanted to appease the Acehnese and order this mosque to be built.

Other politicians wanted to retreat, while still others wanted to burn as many rice fields and villages as possible in an attempt to discourage the Acehnese. Whatever they tried, the Dutch were spectacularly unsuccessful in Aceh. In 1889, the Dutch policies toward Islam took a new direction.

In that year, the famous but highly controversial Dutch Islamist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje came to Aceh. Snouck Hurgronje pretended to be a pious Muslim. He had taken a pilgrimage to Mecca, was fluent in Arabic and Acehnese, and thus managed to gain the trust of the Acehnese.

 

While living in Aceh, he wrote two monumental anthropological books in which he thoroughly described the Acehnese culture and religion. But in addition, he wrote a secret third volume in which he advised the Dutch government how to defeat the Acehnese. Snouck Hurgronje proposed divide-and-conquer tactics, in which the non-political Islam and the traditional Acehnese nobility should be given full support by the Dutch.

When the Dutch put his advice into practice, they slowly but surely gained the upper hand in the war. In the 1920s to 1930s, most Acehnese resistance was broken. By that time, however, Snouck Hurgronje had already returned to the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, he became the director of Leiden University.