Hamka

Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, known as Hamka, was born on 17 February 1908 in Tanah Sirah, near Lake Maninjau, in western Sumatra, the eldest son of the reformer Abdul Karim Amrullah. At fifteen he left home and went to Java, mixed with the reformists of Yogyakarta, then made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1927. A preacher, journalist and teacher, he took his pen name in Medan, where he edited a weekly. Imprisoned under Sukarno from 1964 to 1966, he continued there a commentary on the Quran, then in 1975 became the first chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulama. He died in Jakarta on 24 July 1981.

In the catalogue 1

• NovelTenggelamnya Kapal van der WijckHamka · 1938not translated into EnglishLiterature