Important in life are birthdays. It becomes important again when celebrating and makes it a momentum for change. Like the new year in the Arabic calendar, 1 Muharram 1442 Hijriyah is the right moment to make a meaningful migration. In order for this change to be a blessing, then carry out the tradition of feasting with philosophical symbols.
The people of rural Aceh who live barely enough have prepared annual festivals, especially in the month of Rabiul Awal, the month of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad SAW to treat their neighbors with complete food. Throughout the years of their lives, they are never lacking, although not excessive. Their life is truly a blessing.
The tradition of celebrating the Hijriyah New Year and the Prophet's Birthday in Aceh has not yet embedded symbols in food. Unlike in Java, they still maintain the tradition of serving tumpeng rice, generally, the yellow color is cone-shaped and arranged with the side dishes served on a tampah container.
Javanese people believe tumpeng is an acronym for yen metu kudu sing mempeng (if you go out you have to be serious), which is served with sticky rice cake or buceng which stands for yen melebu kudu sing kenceng (if you enter it must be serious) and add 7 (seven) kinds side dishes, which in Javanese, number 7 means pitu (help).
The three acronyms; The tumpeng, buceng and pitu come from the letter AL-isra 'verse 80 in the form of a prayer, "Oh God, actually enter me in, and get me out completely and make it from You the power to give me help. "
That was the prayer that the Prophet Muhammad SAW said when he left the city of Mecca to move to the city of Medina. As the Prophet's prayer, the tradition of serving tumpeng rice and its side dishes is a symbol of getting good and avoiding badness.
The Javanese people still practice this habit today; practice religion while maintaining tradition. Whereas Aceh in the past also lived its life; adat like poeteumeurhom and hukom like Syiah Kuala.
Fortunately, the Acehnese people still maintain it from generation to generation to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad by bringing dreams to the meunasah or mosque and singing salawat, barzanzi, and dalael. In fact, that is the Aceh identity that all of us should defend.
By the way, about reviewing memory is very important. Moreover, lately, the discourse of awareness "Don't forget your identity" is like getting a moment in the middle of the development of the 4.0 industrial revolution or the world at hand.
The problem is that the study of identity is only on the plain of "sharia" regarding customs, culture, origins, history, and respect for ancestors who are communal in nature, not yet in the self-spiritual atmosphere.
Strengthening studies that lead to "ashobiyah" will give birth to hatred, pride, and loss of affection. Feeling the most righteous and legalizing blood outside of his group becomes a concern and keeps himself away from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad SAW who are far from hatred, not arrogant even as dusty and compassionate to all beings.
The identity of a survivor (Islam) is like the saying "Elephant dipped in the eye is not visible ..." it is difficult to find a true identity even though he is inside. What a loss in life if the heart has not yet reached the stage of "Who knows himself, knows his God" then continued "The beginning of religion is knowing God."
In fact, because of the mistakes we make with our actions, attitudes, and hearts, our true identity memory is stored in a place that we don't know exactly, but the indication is in the study of taste.
One of them is the taste on the tongue. So that the essence of the meaning of Rasulullah (feeling with Allah), maulud (wanting the mouth) and maulid (wanting the tongue) are related. Therefore the tradition of maulud or maulid of the Acehnese people with "dreams" is correct.
No wonder, in every month of Ramadan, the old people used to make Pecel [Indonesian food] with 44 kinds of leaves, including nettle leaves, apparently, the goal is to build awareness to remember the true self with taste.
Finally, happy celebrating the new year of 1442 Hijriyah, hopefully, we find ourselves to know God with the taste of maulud (wanting a mouth) and maulid (wanting a tongue). If with food alone we can find God, why do we have to look upside down looking for him elsewhere?
Mendale, Aceh Sumatra, Indonesia
Note: This article is a free translation of my writing which has already been posted on other social media and local newspapers.