Draft:Kaum Muda

Kaum Muda

Native name	Kaum Muda
English name	The Young Group / Modernists
Ideology	Islamic modernism, Salafiyyah
Era	Early 20th century
Key centers	Singapore, Penang
Influences	Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida
Notable figures	Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin, Sayyid Shaykh al-Hadi

Kaum Muda (قوم مودا, "Young People") was a faction of Islamic modernists in British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies who sought to reform Malay-Muslim society in the early 20th century. Inspired by the reformist movements in the Middle East, particularly the works of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, the Kaum Muda advocated for a return to the Quran and Hadith (Ijtihad) while rejecting the perceived stagnation of traditionalist practices (Taqlid).

In this they stood in opposition to the traditionalist group of the Kaum Tua ("Old People"), who insisted on applying the teachings of the great scholars of the Islamic past. The Kaum Muda developed their greatest influence on Malay society through new madrasas and the publication of newspapers and other literature used in these schools.

In Malaysia

Origins and Ideology

Abdul Karim Amrullah (left), Tahir Jalaluddin (center), and Daud Rasyidi (right).

The movement was spearheaded by the "three reformist teachers": Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin, Sayyid Shaykh al-Hadi, and Haji Abbas bin Muhammad Taha. They operated primarily out of the Straits Settlements (Singapore and Penang), where the lack of an official State Islamic hierarchy allowed for greater intellectual freedom.

The core tenets of Kaum Muda ideology included:

• Rejection of Taqlid: They criticized the blind adherence to the established interpretations of the Shafi'i madhhab and encouraged individual reasoning (Ijtihad).
• Rationalism and Science: They argued that Islam was compatible with modern scientific progress and Western-style education.
• Social Reform: The movement focused on the economic and educational upliftment of the Malay people, often criticizing the feudal structure of Malay society.
• Purification of Faith: They sought to excise "innovations" (Bid'ah) and syncretic elements (remnants of Hindu-Buddhist or animist traditions) from Malay religious practice.

Conflict with the Kaum Tua

The Kaum Muda's radical approach led to intense theological and social friction with the established religious elite, known as the Kaum Tua. This conflict manifested in debates over minor ritual issues (khilafiyyah), such as the proper method of performing the funeral prayer or the use of the Talkin, which served as proxies for a deeper struggle over religious authority.

Legacy

Although the Kaum Muda never succeeded in displacing the traditionalist hierarchies in the Federated Malay States, their influence on Malay nationalism was profound. They provided the intellectual framework for the modern educational systems in Malaysia and paved the way for the political consciousness that led to independence.

Origins

Datuk Sutan Maharaja, who gave the movement its name

The term Kaum Muda first appeared around 1906 in West Sumatra. It was used there by the group of so-called "Young Malays" under the leadership of Datuk Sutan Maharadja, who were responding to the problems of progress and modernity. They formed a political-cultural movement of settlers (perantau) in Padang, in opposition to the aristocratic coastal elite and in particular to the office of the Regent. The movement's supporters argued that progress must be the elaboration and formulation of the ideas and ideals inherent in genuine Minangkabau adat, and condemned the existing political institutions of the coast as deviations from the "Minangkabau world" (alam Minangkabau). According to their leader, the movement aimed to bring Padang back into the fold of the "Minangkabau world" and to overcome the divide between rulers and ruled. Influenced by the Young Turks movement in the Middle East, he named his group Kaum Muda ("Group of the Young or Progressive") and referred to his opponents as Kaum Kuno ("Group of the Old or Conservative").

Abdul Karim Amrullah, known as Haji Rasul

By the mid-1910s, the adat-oriented progressive movement faced a growing challenge from Islamic modernists, as students of Shaykh Ahmad Khatib al-Minangkabawi returned from Mecca to spread his ideas of orthodox reform in their home districts. Among these returnees were Shaykh M. Jamil Jambek in Bukittinggi, Haji Abdullah Ahmad in Padang and Padang Panjang, Haji Rasul, also known as Shaykh Abdul Karim Amrullah, in Maninjau and Padang Panjang, and Shaykh Thaib Umar in Batu Sangkar. They attacked the heterodoxy of the Sufi orders and denounced innovations in religious practice as Bidʿa. Their purification movement was strongly influenced by the Egyptian reformist thinker Muhammad ʿAbduh. In the second decade of the 20th century, these young religious scholars, who also called themselves Kaum Muda, began denouncing traditional religious experts for basing their religious judgements exclusively on naql, that is, on established tradition. In their view, scholars should return to the original sources and strive to attain truth by applying their reason (ʿaql), a process known as Idschtihād. Haji Abdullah Ahmad, the most aggressive "modern" Kaum Muda scholar, together with several Western-educated intellectuals and prominent Minangkabau merchants such as Abdullah Basa Bandaro, led the Kaum Muda group in West Sumatra. Haji Rasul was regarded as the most fundamentalist Kaum Muda scholar.

The Kaum Muda scholars generally came from one of the religious centres in Minangkabau such as Bukittinggi, Padang Panjang, Batusangkar, and Maninjau. Most of them belonged to highly respected and wealthy scholarly families.

Teachings

Religious Purism

As religious purists, the Kaum Muda fought against such practices as the Talqīn, a brief address recited over the grave at the end of a funeral ceremony during the burial of the dead, giving the deceased advice on how to answer the questions of Munkar and Nakir. The Kaum Muda disapproved of such customs as Bidʿa. In the course of the religious conflict with the traditionalists, the Kaum Tua, the Kaum Muda began to attack traditional practices, for example the manner in which the Prophet's birthday was celebrated. By denouncing the prevailing practice, the Kaum Muda ulama attacked the dogmatism of the Kaum Tua and simultaneously undermined the position of the religious adat functionaries who performed the religious rites integrated into the adat. The anger of the Kaum Muda was directed particularly at the rural ʿulamāʾ. The conflict between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua manifested itself in dogmatic and ritual controversies of various kinds.

The Kaum Muda also condemned the Sufi orders for their escapist orientation. "Islam," declared one of their spokespersons, "is not only a religion for the hereafter, but rather the guide for life in this world."

Modernism

The Kaum Muda scholars emphasised the need to review traditionally accepted norms and soon concluded that they no longer wished to be bound to a particular school of law (Madhhab). Rather than simply following the prescriptions of the Shafi'i school of law, to which the majority of Indonesian and Malay Muslims belonged, the Kaum Muda scholars formulated their fatwas after examining the legal doctrines of other orthodox schools of law. In doing so they distanced themselves from the teachings of their own highly esteemed teacher, Shaykh Ahmad Khatib, an imam of the Shafi'i school in Mecca. Although they respected him, they found more common ground with his cousin, Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin, who had studied at al-Azhar in Cairo and from 1906 onwards published al-Imām in Singapore, the first Islamic modernist journal of the Malay world.

As modernists, they also argued for the permissibility of interest at savings banks and cooperatives as non-usurious and therefore not falling under the prohibition of Ribā. In doing so they invoked a well-known fatwa of Muhammad ʿAbduh on interest. They also advocated greater freedom for women to obtain an education and to participate in social affairs. On Java, the conflict between the two groups centred mainly on the question of the necessity of ijtihād, which was advocated by the Kaum Muda but rejected by the Kaum Tua, who considered it necessary to adhere to Taqlīd.

"The Kaum Tua," wrote Sayyid Shaykh al-Hadi in his journal Al-Ikhwan ("The Brothers") in 1929, "behave as though it were a duty to believe in all the law books of the ʿUlamāʾ and in every word therein, as if they were the Quran itself … whereas the Kaum Muda are of the opinion that only the Quran and the Hadiths possess this authority, and that God, since none of the ʿUlamāʾ is free from error, has given us reason and intelligence with which we can examine what the ʿUlamāʾ say."

Ultimately, for the Kaum Muda, the perfection and purification of Islam was not an end in itself, but a means of accelerating and directing social and economic change to improve Malay society, a process which in their view was being impeded by traditional Islam as practised in the Malay states. "In other parts of the Islamic world," wrote another author in Al-Ikhwan in 1928, "the Kaum Muda are becoming the instrument of progress and are dragging the Kaum Tua out of their senility and stupidity. … [In Malaya] the ʿUlamāʾ wish, like Saint Peter in the Roman Church, to possess the sole key to the gates of heaven."

Means of Spreading Their Teachings

Schools

The Kaum Muda ulama typically began their careers as traditional religious teachers and only reluctantly accepted the adat decorum accorded to a religious teacher. Some of them inherited religious schools that had been run by their fathers or uncles. In 1912, Haji Rasul became a teacher at the madrasa of Padang Panjang, known as the Surau Jembatan Besi. The early Kaum Muda schools operated according to the traditional "circle" system (ḥalqa): the teacher explained religious tracts to his students, who sat around him with their books and notes. Haji Rasul, however, gradually modernised the teaching methods, curriculum, and textbooks at his school, so that the madrasa became a model for other Kaum Muda schools. It served as the model, for example, for the Kaum Muda schools of Parabek, Padang Japang, Maninjau, and Batu Sangkar. After their student organisation, these schools were called Thawalib schools.

Rahma al-Yunusiah, founder of the first Islamic women's school in the Dutch East Indies

In 1912, the Kaum Muda of Padang, in cooperation with merchants and officials, founded the Sarekat Usaha ("Association of Endeavour"), which in turn established the first private Dutch-medium school for indigenous pupils that included religious instruction. The Sarekat Usaha school was the first secular Kaum Muda school to use Dutch as the medium of instruction. Broader reform of the curriculum at religious schools did not begin until 1915. Zainuddin Labai, a student of Haji Rasul and one of the most capable young scholars, began to model his own religious primary school on state schools. This school, the Dinijah, introduced a grade system in religious education and, unlike the old schools, also admitted girls as pupils.

In 1923, a sister of Zainuddin, Rahma al-Yunusiah, founded the Dinijah Putri (Dinijah for Girls) in Padang Panjang. The founding of this school and its subsequent success not only made its founder one of the most important pioneers of modern Indonesian history, but also led to the formation of an active female Kaum Muda group that would play an important role in the broader Minangkabau social and political movement. After the mid-1920s, the number of Kaum Muda schools grew rapidly, partly due to the spread of Kaum Muda influence and the improvement of the economic situation, but also because of the government's ambiguous education policy. By 1930, the Dinijah and Thawalib schools had become the most important educational institutions of the Kaum Muda. Despite their one-sided emphasis on theological problems, they energetically cultivated the idea of individual rationality and the spirit of reform.

Journals

Tahir Jalaluddin, editor of Al-Imam

Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin, one of the most respected representatives of the Kaum Muda, published the journal al-Imām in Singapore between 1906 and 1909. Later, the Kaum Muda journal al-Munir appeared in West Sumatra. Another Kaum Muda organ was the journal al-Munir, which was published from 1911 to 1915 in Padang.

By the mid-1920s, Sayyid Shaykh al-Hadi and a number of like-minded individuals in Penang were very active in producing popular literature and journals with a Kaum Muda orientation. The Kaum Muda ulama also attacked everything they considered religiously unlawful through public preaching, particularly at religious gatherings (tabligh).

Preaching

The Kaum Muda ulama discussed religious problems in a language that ordinary people could understand; this represented a revolutionary change compared with traditional religious gatherings at which experts merely read and explained religious texts. Instead of texts, the Kaum Muda scholars addressed the problems of daily life.

The Reaction of the Traditional Religious Establishment

The Kaum Muda's demands for the abolition, revision, or simplification of various adat ceremonies — such as certain wedding and funeral rites or the traditional manner of celebrating holidays — were interpreted by adat officials as direct attacks on their own authority and therefore as a threat to the stability of the adat. The ideas of the Kaum Muda were therefore also regarded as attacks on the traditional elite that stood behind and was connected to the religious hierarchy. Official Islam responded both with arguments and with the direct exercise of its authority. Journals such as Pengasoh ("The Educator"; 1918–1937), a fortnightly journal published by the "Council for Religion and Malay Custom" in Kelantan and distributed throughout the Malay Peninsula, propagated contrary viewpoints and condemned the Kaum Muda as irreligious.

When Haji Abdul Karim Amrullah, one of the most prominent figures of the Kaum Muda in West Sumatra, visited Malaya in 1916 and gave speeches in all the states of the west coast and in Johor, he succeeded, despite official opposition, in convincing many people of his position. However, as a result of reports by religious officials to the Malay rulers, he was threatened with expulsion. In some states, Kaum Muda journals and other publications were banned from import, and an amendment to the law of 1904 passed in 1925/26 provided for severe penalties for anyone who printed or published literature on the Islamic religion without the written permission of the Sultan. The conflict also prompted the traditionalist Muslim scholars to seek common ground with the mystical leaders in the face of the new adversary. When Bertram Schrieke took a case that the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua were disputing in West Sumatra to Java in 1919 and asked the Javanese ʿUlamāʾ for their opinion, they unanimously condemned the position of the Kaum Muda.

In the early 1920s, some Kaum Tua scholars began to copy the preaching methods (tabligh) that the Kaum Muda used to disseminate religious instruction to the population. By the end of the 1920s they also began to imitate the Kaum Muda educational system.

The Polarisation of Muslims between Kaum Muda and Kaum Tua

One consequence of the controversies between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua was a polarisation among Muslims. For example, the central mosque of Padang, which fell under adat jurisdiction, employed two imams for several years, representing the Kaum Tua and the Kaum Muda respectively.

Through their polemics against rural scholars in newspaper columns and journals, the Kaum Muda also carried the conflict with the Kaum Tua into the villages. Sometimes all that was needed was a single Haji returning from the Middle East with reformist ideas, or a religious teacher who had studied at a Kaum Muda madrasa in Singapore, Perak, or Penang, to temporarily split a village into two rival factions. In the village of Jeram in Selangor, for example, a dispute broke out between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua at the end of the 1920s over the question of whether participants at the Maulud Nabi ceremony should stand when the name of the Prophet was mentioned. On the surface, the conflicts concerned religious questions, but related social issues were frequently also involved, such as the expansion of popular, Western-oriented education, the introduction of rubber cultivation, and a changing economy.

As Bertram Schrieke observed for West Sumatra, the conflicts between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua were frequently concerned with social problems of considerable complexity. To be Kaum Muda meant advocating modernity in every form and opposing tradition; to be Kaum Tua meant advocating everything familiar, unchanging, and secure. In a volume of essays published in 1935 in a collection entitled The Malayan Kaleidoscope, a certain Haji Abdul Majid b. Zainuddin wrote that there was hardly a village in Malaya in which Malays were not quarrelling and debating over the teachings of the Kaum Muda.

In the face of the continuing attacks from the Kaum Muda scholars, the adat-oriented progressives such as Datuk Sutan Maharadja distanced themselves from the Kaum Muda designation in the late 1910s and began to call themselves Kaum Kuno. In 1916, Datuk Sutan Maharadja founded the Sarekat Adat Alam Minangkabau (SAAM, "Adat Society of the Minangkabau World") to counter the Kaum Muda movement in the field of education and in the political sphere.

Organisations

In 1920, the Minangkabau Kaum Muda scholars founded the Persatuan Guru Agama Islam (PGAI, "Association of Islamic Religious Teachers"). This was the first organisation established among Kaum Muda scholars. The Kaum Muda of Padang also founded the Sarekat Ilmu ("Association for Knowledge"), which published religious texts with a Kaum Muda orientation.

Their Own Sarekat Islam

In West Sumatra, the Kaum Muda joined the Sarekat Islam (SI) and early on dominated the local executive of the party. In August 1916, the Kaum Muda faction founded its own SI, whose members were largely also members of the Kaum Muda organisation Sarekat Usaha: the Kaum Muda SI was referred to as the "White Card SI", while the Kaum Tua faction was referred to as the "Red Card SI". The Kaum Muda SI was recognised by neither the central SI nor the government, but made progress in several communities that were already under the influence of the religious Kaum Muda movement. In 1917, Abdul Muis stopped in Padang on his way to Europe. He attempted to reunite the two SI factions but failed and joined the Kaum Muda side. He led the Kaum Muda SI into the arena of political activism.

Sarekat Combinatie Minangkabau (SCM)

From 1918 to 1923, the main concern of the Kaum Muda political parties was to achieve political cooperation among themselves and to create a means of addressing grievances in the population. In June 1918, approximately 30 political and educational organisations of the Kaum Muda held a general assembly in Bukittinggi. In April 1919, Bagindo Djamaluddin Rassad, a graduate of the Agricultural College of Wageningen, took the initiative to found the Sarekat Combinatie Minangkabau (SCM, "Federation of Minangkabau Associations"). The members of the SCM were mainly Kaum Muda-oriented organisations. In July 1922, the SCM and its member organisations, in particular the local NIP and the Kaum Muda SI, organised the first and only Congress of the Unity of Sumatra (Congres Persatuan Sumatra).

Sumatera Thawalib

Unlike other Kaum Muda institutions, the school of Haji Rasul in Padang Panjang was under the control of the student organisation and the school administration. In 1918, the student organisation was transformed into an organisation with a broader scope of activity and adopted the new name Sumatra Thuwailib ("Students of Sumatra"). In the same year, a student organisation was founded at the madrasa in Parabek near Bukittinggi by Shaykh Ibrahim Musa, a moderate Kaum Muda scholar. On 15 February 1919, the students of Padang Panjang and Parabek founded an association that became known as Sumatra Thawalib (General Organisation of the Students of Sumatra). Following the example of Padang Panjang and Parabek, the Kaum Muda schools in Padang Japang, Maninjau, and Batu Sangkar were also renamed Sumatra Thawalib. A decision was soon made to unite the students of these five schools in a single organisation.

In early 1923, Haji Datuk Batuah, one of the younger teachers at the Thawalib and adviser to the student organisation, who had come under the influence of communist doctrines, began to introduce this ideology among the students. Datuk Batuah's influence in the Sumatra Thawalib represented a direct challenge to Haji Rasul, the school's head teacher, who was not only opposed to student involvement in political activities but also condemned the new ideology as a deviation from Islamic orthodoxy. Haji Rasul's attempts to influence Haji Datuk Batuah and his colleagues only worsened relations between them. On 2 August 1923, a meeting between the two sides took place at the home of Datuk Batuah in Kota Lawas. Haji Rasul was supported by several Kaum Muda scholars, including Shaykh Tahir Jalaluddin. The meeting, however, ended in complete failure. Haji Rasul subsequently resigned from his post.

Haji Rasul's resignation led to open hostility between the Kaum Muda scholars and Datuk Batuah's group. When the government arrested Datuk Batuah on 11 November 1923, the younger generation of religious Kaum Muda, who had come under communist influence, held Haji Rasul responsible for the arrest. After this event, the Islamic communists no longer restrained themselves in their attacks on the Kaum Muda scholars. The religious Kaum Muda movement thus entered a severe crisis, and the Kaum Muda scholars feared that their movement was in danger of dissolving. In early 1924, their organisation, the PGAI, declared itself opposed to communism, arguing that it could not be reconciled with Islam.

Relations with the Dutch Government

Until 1919, when the Dutch colonial government decided to mediate in the religious conflict between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua, the political climate was favourable for the Kaum Muda scholars. Through their diverse programmes and their insistence on the separation of religion and politics, the Kaum Muda scholars were able to win the sympathy of the Dutch colonial government. The Sarekat Usaha school received support from the government, and Haji Abdullah Ahmad, the leader of the Kaum Muda scholars in Padang, maintained good relations with local Dutch officials. He regarded the Dutch government as an ally in his modernisation programme. Other Kaum Muda maintained good relations with Dutch officials; for example, the children of Shaykh Jambek were enrolled in respected government schools. Even Haji Rasul, a Kaum Muda scholar described as aggressive and fanatical, refused to openly challenge the existence of Dutch political power. This attitude of the Kaum Muda scholars explains why they were to some extent free from government suspicion. However, government officials were also less suspicious of their activities because they were based in urban areas rather than in villages and were therefore easier to monitor.

The Dutch orientalist Philippus Samuel van Ronkel, who had been tasked with an investigation into the religious currents prevailing on the west coast of Sumatra, recommended in 1916 that a neutral position be taken in the religious controversy between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua, but cautioned the government to observe the activities of the Kaum Muda ulama carefully. The Dutch Resident LeFebvre shared his conviction that the Kaum Muda scholars were neither anti-government nor interested in politics and that Haji Abdullah Ahmad and his school supported the idea of the "association policy". In his view, the penghulu, that is the clan elders, were nothing but "stupid and backward" adat chiefs, and he believed that the future development of the Minangkabau lay in the hands of the secular and religious Kaum Muda.

However, the Kaum Muda SI, founded in 1916, was not recognised by the government. In 1918, the Kaum Muda SI, which had shortly before been recognised by the central SI as an independent branch, developed into a moderate opposition party that entered into an alliance directed against the government with the outspoken National Indies Party (NIP). This development towards an oppositional group accelerated when in 1919 the Dutch Resident LeFebvre, who had maintained friendly relations with the Kaum Muda group in Padang, was replaced by one of his deputies, Whitlaw, who was suspicious of everything connected with Islam. Bertram Schrieke, however, still presided over a debate between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua in 1919.

Thereafter the attitude of the government changed, and the Kaum Muda scholars came increasingly under surveillance. From 1923 onwards, local administrators began to deploy the adat apparatus against the Kaum Muda. Graduates of Kaum Muda schools also became increasingly subject to government suspicion, because some Kaum Muda organisations had begun to participate in opposition to certain government measures, particularly against the land tax and forest conservation programmes. The fact that the spread of the communist movement had benefited from the involvement of former students of Kaum Muda schools, such as Sumatra Thawalib, made the local administration additionally suspicious of everything connected with this group.

The Equation of the Kaum Muda with Communists

From the mid-1920s onwards, the Kaum Muda in West Sumatra were increasingly equated with communists. This was also connected with the rise of the communist Sarekat Rakyat, which recruited its cadres largely from the students and followers of the Kaum Muda. Seruan Azhar, the journal of Malay students at al-Azhar, wrote in a review of the year 1927, in which a communist uprising on Sumatra had been suppressed, that the most striking change in the past year for the homeland had been the transformation of the dispute between the Kaum Muda and the Kaum Tua into a dispute between communists and non-communists. In 1933, many Kaum Muda teachers were banned from teaching and some of their schools were closed. Haji Abdul Majid b. Zainuddin wrote in 1935: "The Kaum Tua or Old Party, from which the religious functionaries of the country have been recruited, are trying out of revenge to insinuate that the Kaum Muda are undesirable communists, which they most certainly are not."

The term "Kaum Muda" never entirely lost its connotation of challenging traditional religious authority, but it took on an increasingly secular meaning. A decade later, in 1940, it was possible for the Sultan of Perak to divide Malay society into three different groups: Kaum Tua, Kaum Muda, and Orang Muda-Muda: "Those who belong to the first category devote themselves mainly to the spiritual side of life, those belonging to the second category to the material side of life, while it can be said that the third group oscillates between these two."

Muhammadiyah as a Refuge for the Kaum Muda

Muhammadiyah, which had its headquarters in Java, was in essence also a Kaum Muda organisation. According to Taufik Abdullah, it was the largest Kaum Muda organisation. Its founder, Achmad Dahlan, shared the ideals of the Minangkabau Kaum Muda scholars and was considered a devoted subscriber to the journal Al-Munir. Both Dahlan and the Minangkabau Kaum Muda were influenced by the Egyptian religious reformer Muhammad ʿAbduh. But while the Kaum Muda scholars were still preoccupied with their conflict with the Kaum Tua, Dahlan and his Muhammadiyah were slowly mobilising the Muslim santri community in the heartland of Javanese court culture.

After the communist uprising in West Sumatra, the Muhammadiyah became the only organisation that united the fragmented elements of the religious Kaum Muda. It became the most important organisation for graduates of Kaum Muda schools in which they could pursue their various goals, and gave the younger Kaum Muda the opportunity to wrest leadership back from the Kaum Muda scholars.

Further reading

Secondary literature

• Taufik Abdullah: Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927–1933). Dissertation, Cornell University, 1971.
• Azyumardi Azra: "The Transmission of al-Manār's Reformism to the Malay-Indonesian World. The Case of al-Imām and al-Munīr." In: Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Komatsu Hisao, Kosugi Yasushi (eds.): Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World. Transmission, Transformation, Communication. Abingdon, Routledge, 2007, pp. 143–158.
• Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi: The Extensive Salafization of Malaysian Islam. ISEAS Publishing, Singapore, 2016, pp. 5–9.
• Kamarul Afendey Hamimi: Kaum Muda Penggerak Kesedaran Kemerdekaan Tanah Melyau 1906–1957. Dissertation, Sultan Idris Education University, 2018. Digital copy
• Hiroko Kushimoto: "Islam and Modern School Education in Journal Pengasuh: Review of the Kaum Muda – Kaum Tua Dichotomy" in Studia Islamika 19/2 (2014), pp. 207–249.
• Nico Kaptein: "The Berdiri Mawlid Issue among Indonesian Muslims in the Period from circa 1875 to 1930." In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 149 (1993), pp. 124–153.
• Michael Francis Laffan: Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma below the Winds. Routledge, London / New York, 2003.
• Wendy Mukherjee: "Kaum Muda and Kaum Tua in West Java" in Peter G. Riddell: Islam – Essays on Scripture, Thought and Society: A Festschrift in Honour of Anthony H. Johns. Brill, Leiden, 1997, pp. 309–324.
• Mohd. Sarim Hj. Mustajab: "Teacher and Kaum Muda Activist" in: Alijah Gordon (ed.): The Real Cry of Syed Sheikh al-Hady, with Selections of his Writings by his Son Syed Alwi al-Hady. Malaysian Sociological Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur, 1999, pp. 249–257.
• Deliar Noer: The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia (1900–1942). Oxford University Press, S

References

• Roff, W. R. (1967). The Origins of Malay Nationalism. Yale University Press.
• Milner, A. (2002). The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya. Cambridge University Press.
• Azra, A. (2004). The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press.

Category:Islam in Malaysia Category:Islamic modernism Category:History of Malaysia