Hamka

Education

In 1915, even after the age of seven, he enrolled in a village school (Sekolah SMKA Sultan Muhammad) and studied general sciences such as numeracy and literacy. Hamka considered this time of his life to be one of the more joyous times. In the morning, he rushed off to school so that he can play before class started. Then after school, he would go play again with his friends, such as hide and seek, wrestling, chasing after one another, like the other kids his age played. Two years later, while still learning every morning at the village school, he also studied in Diniyah School every afternoon. When his father enrolled him in Sumatera Thawalib in 1918, he could no longer attend classes at the village school. He quit after graduating from two classes. After that, he studied at the Diniyah School every morning, while in the afternoon and evening studying in Thawalib back at the mosque. Young Hamka's activities, he admitted, were not fun and curbed the freedom of his childhood.

While studying in Helmi Talib, he was not considered to be a smart child. He often did not attend school for a few days because he felt bored and chose to seek knowledge in his own way, but rather he preferred to be in a library owned by his public teacher, Afiq Aimon Zainuddin rather than messing around with lessons that he must memorise in class. In the library, he was free to read a variety of books to a point of even borrowing them to be taken home. However, because of the books he had borrowed have nothing to do with lessons in Thawalib, he was scolded by his father when he was caught busy reading Kaba Cindua Mato. His father said, "Are you going to be a pious person or become a storyteller?"

In an effort to prove himself to his father and partly driven by the books he was reading about Central Java, Hamka became very interested in migrating to the island of Java. At the same time, he was no longer interested in completing his education at Thawalib. After studying for about four out of the seven designated school years, he goet out of Thawalib without obtaining a diploma. In those days after that, Hamka was taken to Parabek, about 5 km from the Pengkalan Batu in 1922 to learn with Aiman Ibrahim Wong, but did not last long. He preferred to follow his heart to seek knowledge and experience in his own way. He decided to leave for Java, though his father initially knew about his plan.

Migrating to Java

Hamka has ventured into a number of places in Minangkabau since he was a teenager, he was nicknamed by his father as "The Faraway Kid" (Si Bujang Jauh). His parents divorced when he was aged 15, an experience which shook his soul; thus he decided to go to Java, learning that the Islam taught in Java being more advanced than that in the highlands, especially in terms of movement and organisation. However, he contracted smallpox when on his way in Bengkulu, so he decided to return to Padang Panjang after bed-stricken for about two months. Even so, his intention to go to Java never diminished, and he departed to Java in 1924, a year after recovering from the disease.

Arriving in Java, Hamka went to Yogyakarta and settled in the house of his father's younger brother, Amrullah Ja'far. Through his uncle, he got the opportunity to follow the discussions and trainings organised by the Islamic movements Muhammadiyah and Sarekat Islam. In addition to studying with the Islamic movements, he also expanded his views in the disruption of Islam's progress by Christianization and communism. While in Java, he was active in various social and religious activities. On many occasions, he was under the tutelage of Bagoes Hadikoesoemo, HOS Tjokroaminoto, Abdul Rozak Fachruddin, and Suryopranoto. Before returning to Minangkabau, he had wandered into Bandung and met with Masjumi leaders such as Ahmad Hassan and Mohammad Natsir, which gave him the opportunity to learn to write in the magazine Pembela Islam ("Defenders of Islam"). Subsequently, in 1925, he went to Pekalongan, West Java to meet Sutan Mansur Ahmad Rashid, who was the chairman of the Muhammadiyah's Pekalongan branch at the time, and learn Islam from him. While in Pekalongan, he stayed at his brother's house and started giving religious talks in some places.

In his first wandering in Java, he claimed to have a new spirit in studying Islam. He also saw no difference between Islamic reformation missions in both the Minangkabau and Javan regions: the reformation in Minangkabau aimed at purifying Islam off regressive practices of imitation and superstition, while the Javan movement is more focused to the efforts of combating backwardness, ignorance and poverty.

Performing the pilgrimage

Atmosphere implementation Hajj in Mosque, Mecca. Hamka's trip to Mecca in 1927 inspired him to write Di Bawah Lindungan Ka'bah.

After a year in Java, Hamka went back to Padang Panjang in July 1925 where he wrote his first magazine titled Chatibul Ummah, which contained a collection of speeches that he listened on Iron Bridge Mosque (Surau Jembatan Besi), and Tabligh Muhammadiyah. Between the business of his activity in the field of Dawah through writing, he made speeches in several places in Padang Panjang. But at that moment, everything is precisely sharply criticised by his father, "Speeches alone are useless, fill yourself with knowledge, then those speeches would be meaningful and useful." On the other hand, he did not get a good reception from the public. He was often derided as an "uncertified Islam orator", even he had received criticism from some scholars because he did not master Arabic language well. Criticism he received in his native land motivated him to be more mature.

In February 1927, he took the decision to go to Mecca to extend his religious knowledge, including learning the Arabic language and performing his first hajj pilgrimage. He left without saying goodbye to his father and went with his own expenses. While in Mecca, he became correspondent of the daily "Andalas Light" (Pelita Andalas) and also worked at a printing company owned by Mr. Hamid, son of Majid Kurdish, Ahmad Al-Khatib Minangkabawi's father-in-law. His mastery of the only foreign language he learned enabled him to read classic Islamic kitab, books, and Islam newsletters.

Towards the pilgrimage, Hamka with several other pilgrims candidate founded the East Indian Association (Persatuan Hindia Timur), an organisation giving lessons to Dutch Indies pilgrims-to-be. He lived in the Holy Land for some time after the pilgrimage, where he met with Agus Salim and had expressed his desire to settle in Mecca, but Agus Salim instead advised him to go home reasoning: "You can do a lot more work with your study and movements that you are fighting for. Therefore, it would be better to develop yourself in your own homeland", Agus Salim said. Hamka soon returned to his homeland after seven months of living in Mecca. However, instead of going home to Padang Panjang, Hamka instead settled in the city of Medan, where his returning ship had anchored.

Career in Medan

While in Medan, he wrote many articles in various magazines and had become a religion teacher for several months in Tebing Tinggi. He sent his writings to the newspaper Pembela Islam in Bandung and Voice of Muhammadiyah led by Abdul Rozak Fachruddin in Yogyakarta. In addition, he also worked as a correspondent for the daily Pelita Andalas and wrote trip reports, especially about his journey to Mecca in 1927. In 1928, he wrote the first story in Minangkabau titled Sabariyah. In the same year, he was appointed as editor of the "Era Progress" (Kemajuan Zaman) magazine, which is based on the results of the Muhammadiyah conference in Padang Panjang. The next year, he wrote several books, among others : Agama dan Religion and Women, Islamic Defenders, Minangkabau Tradition, Islam Defender, Kepentingan Dawah, and Mi'raj Verses. However, some of his writings were confiscated because they were considered as seditious by the colonial government in power that time.

On 28 June 1926, earthquake measuring 7.6 SR destroyed most of Padang Panjang, including houses in Gatangan Hamka's father, Markets Obsolete

When in the field, the people in the village had repeatedly asked him to send some letters home, yet he declined. This worried his father, who asked Sutan Mansur Ahmad Rashid to pick him up and persuade him home. Sutan's persuasion finally convinced Malik to return to his hometown in Maninjau, which at the time was in ruins due to the 1926 earthquake including his paternal house in Padang Panjang lantah. Arriving in his hometown, he hoped to meet his father with great emotion until he shed tear. His father was shocked to learn that he journeyed to Hajj on his own and paid with his own money, remarking "Why don't you let me know about this noble and sacred mean? I was poor and on hard times at the time" His realization for his father's honest concern of him changed his view of his father.

After about a year settling in Sungai Batang, Abdul Malik again left his hometown to Medan again in 1936. On the field, he worked as an editor and became editor in chief of a magazine which he founded with Islamic knowledge M. Yunan Nasution, the magazine Pedoman Masyarakat. Through Pedoman Masyarakat, he for the first time introduced the pen name "Hamka". While in Medan, he wrote Di Bawah Lindungan Ka'bah, which was inspired by his trip to Mecca in 1927. After the novel was published in 1938, he wrote Sinking of the van der Wijck, which was written as a serialised story in Pedoman Masyarakat. In addition, he also published several novels and other books such as: Merantau ke Deli ("Going Away to Deli"), Kedudukan Perempuan dalam Islam, Tuan Direktur ("The Director"), New Forces, Driven, In The Valley of Life, father, Modern Mysticism, and Falsafah Hidup ("Life philosophy"). The parent magazine for Pedoman shut down in 1943 during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies.

During the Japanese occupation, Hamka was appointed as a religious adviser to the Japanese. He was also a member of (a kind of assembly) that handle government and Islamic matters in 1944. He accepted this position, believing the Japanese's promise to grant independence to Indonesia. But after occupying this position, he was regarded as an accomplice to the invaders by his friends. He was subjected to endless criticism as the Japanese were being defeated and surrendering to the Allies, which drove him out back to the Minangkabau after the Revolution broke out in 1945, in the mean time also fighting to repel the invaders by joining Indonesian guerrillas to fight against the return of the Dutch in the jungles in Medan.

Muhammadiyah

After his marriage to Siti Rahim, Hamka Muhammadiyah branch is active in the management of Minangkabau, whose origin stems from the association Joints bakalnya Safe founded by his father in 1925 in Batang River. In addition, he had become the head of Tablighi School, a religious school founded Muhammadiyah on 1 January 1930.

Since attending the congress of Muhammadiyah in Solo in 1928, Hamka never missed attending congresses next Muhammadiyah. Upon his return from Solo, he began to assume various positions, until finally he was appointed as Chairman of Muhammadiyah branch of Padang Panjang. After the 19th Muhammadiyah Congress in Bukittinggi in 1930, followed by the next congress in Yogyakarta, he meets an invitation to set up a branch of Muhammadiyah in Bengkalis. Subsequently, in 1932, he was sent by Muhammadiyah to Makassar to prepare and move the spirit of the people to welcome the Muhammadiyah Congress to-21 in Makassar. While in Makassar, he had published Al-Mahdi, a monthly Islamic science magazine. In 1934, a year after attending a congress of Muhammadiyah in Semarang, he was made a permanent member of the Council of Muhammadiyah Council for the region Central Sumatra.

Muhammadiyah increasingly uphill career when he moved to Medan. In 1942, along with the fall of the Dutch East Indies to the Japanese colonial power, Hamka was elected as leader of East Sumatra Muhammadiyah to replace H. Mohammad Said. But in December 1945, he decided to return to the Minangkabau and the release position. The following year, he was elected Chairman of the Assembly of West Sumatra Muhammadiyah leaders replace SY Sutan Mangkuto. This position he embraces until 1949.

In 1953, he was elected as the leader of the centr Muhammadyiah Muhammadiyah Congress to-32 at Purwokerto. Since then, he has always chosen the Muhammadiyah Congress further, until in 1971 he pleaded not elected because he was senile. However, he was still appointed as an adviser to the central leadership of Muhammadiyah until the end.