Muhammad Yamin

Who was Muhammad Yamin?

Muhammad Yamin was born in Talawi, Sawahlunto, in the heartland of the Minangkabau on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. He was the son of Tuanku Oesman Gelar Baginda Khatib the penghulu andiko of Indrapura and author of a manuscript on Minangkabau adat laws that now is stored at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. Oesman had five wives with whom he had sixteen children who make up a veritably influential, but incohesive political and intellectual, family in early modern Indonesian history. Other well-known sons of Oesman are Muhammad Yaman Rajo Endah, the eldest, an educator; Achmad Djamaluddin, a renowned journalist, who later in life added to his name his nom de plume, Adinegoro; and Ramana Oesman, a pioneer of the Indonesian diplomatic corps.