Mas Mansoer

Mas Mansoer (EYD: Mas Mansur; 25 June 1896 – 25 April 1946) was an Indonesian scholar and religious leader who chaired Muhammadiyah from 1937 to 1942 and was declared a National Hero in 1964. No Arabic or Urdu Wikipedia article exists for him; this page is written from the English and Indonesian articles and his Wikidata item. ^{1 2 3}

He was born at Kampung Sawahan in Surabaya, the son of Kyai Haji Mas Ahmad Marzuki, a religious scholar of the Sumenep royal line who served as imam and khatib of the Ampel mosque, and a mother of Bugis and Minang descent. He learned at his father's pesantren circles and at Demangan in Bangkalan under Kyai Khalil, went to Mecca at twelve, and — against his father's first wishes — continued to Egypt, where he studied at al-Azhar for about two years before returning to Indonesia in 1915. ^{1 2}

Back in Surabaya he taught at the Mufidah pesantren, joined Sarekat Islam and advised its central board, and with Abdul Wahab Hasbullah founded the discussion circle Taswir al-Afkar and the educational movement Nahdlatul Wathan; a disagreement with Wahab over questions of ijtihad and madhhab later took him out of the circle. He joined Muhammadiyah in 1921, rose through its Surabaya branch and East Java consulate, and at the 26th Congress in 1937 — after the old board stood down and Ki Bagus Hadikusumo declined — accepted the chairmanship. His leadership was marked by the "Twelve Steps of Muhammadiyah" (1938–1949 programme), strict organisational discipline, and the founding of the Majelis Islam A'la Indonesia (1937) and the Indonesian Islamic Party (1938). ^{1 2}

Under the Japanese occupation he helped form Masyumi and was appointed one of the four leaders of Putera — the "Four Series" with Sukarno, Hatta and Ki Hajar Dewantara — handing the Muhammadiyah chairmanship to Ki Bagus Hadikusumo; illness made him resign from Putera in 1944. During the revolution he rallied Surabaya's defenders against the British, refused a Dutch demand to broadcast a call to surrender, and was jailed in Kalisosok Prison, where he died on 25 April 1946. His remains were buried at Langgar Gipo in Surabaya. ^{1 2}

The English article records his rulings: bank interest is forbidden, though banking business remains permitted — the Indonesian article gives his fuller reasoning, that under compulsion the use of banks was excused so the community's economy would not collapse; he prohibited what he counted as innovations in worship, among them grave pilgrimage, the selametan feast and the talqin over the dead, and in his Risalah Tawhid dan Sjirik blamed Muslims' weakness on corrupted belief. These are his positions and rulings; neither article names a madhhab for him, and his record leaves his school unknown. ^{1 2}

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