BIOGRAPHY OF AGUS SALIM

BIOGRAPHY

OF

AGUS SALIM

Agus Salim was born Masjhoedoelhaq Salim on October 8, 1884, in the village of Koto Gadang, a suburb of Fort de kock. His father, Sutan Mohammad Salim, was a colonial prosecutor and judge whose highest rank was chief judge for the indigenous court in Tanjung Pinang. His birth name, which translates into "defender of truth", was changed into Agus Salim early in his childhood.

Salim received his elementary education at Europeesche Lagere School (ELS); at that time, it was considered a privilege for a non-European kid to attend an all-European school. He continued his studies at the Hogere Burgerschool (HBS) in Batavia, and graduated with highest score in the whole Dutch East Indies. Salim's father had applied (and was granted) for his two sons, Agus and Jacob, to be granted an equal status with the Europeans. However, his efforts to secure a government scholarship to study medicine in the Netherlands fell short. Kartini, another European-educated student whose writings on women's rights and emancipation became famous later, offered to defer her own scholarship for Salim; this, too, was rejected.

C.S. Hurgronje, a prominent colonial administrator best known for his study of native affairs, took Salim under his wing and arranged for him to left the Indies on 1905 to work as an interpreter and secretary at the Dutch consulate in Jeddah, where he handled hajj affairs; in some way, it was to distance him from the radical teachings of a close relative, the well-known Shafi'i imam of Masjid al-Haram Ahmad Khatib al-Minangkabawi.

Salim returned to the Indies in 1911 and pursued a career in journalism, contributing pieces for magazines and publications like Hindia Baroe, Fadjar Asia, and Moestika. He would later served as an editor in Neratja, a newspaper aligned with the Sarekat Islam, where he was also an active member. While in that, he founded a private Hollandsche Indische School (HIS) in his hometown of Koto Gadang, but left after three years to return to Java.