QSM Chief Biographical Data

Family Background

Kassim Ahmad is the eldest son of three children, born on 9th September, 1933 to an Islamic religious teacher, Ahmad Ishak and housewife Ummi Kalthom Hj Ahmad, in Bukit Pinang in the district of Kota Setar, in the northern state of Kedah in Malaysia. His parents were fourth generation Malaysians who, on his father’s side, were believed to have migrated from Padang, Sumatera, and, on his mother’s side, from the Thai Malay province of Pattani. His grand-father who doubled as a religious teacher and farmer was domiciled in Seberang Perai in the state of Penang. His father married his mother, the youngest daughter of a farmer in Kedah, and lived in various village towns in Kedah in his career as a religious teacher until they settled down on a piece of land they bought in Bukit Pinang.

Educational Background

Having led a hard life, his parents wanted their eldest son to make good. Being a diligent and intelligent boy, Kassim easily won the praises of his teachers in both primary and secondary schools and was given many positions of responsibilty. But towards the end of his schooling, he contarcted interest in politics that turned him into a young radical, and was later to land him as head of the Malaysian socialist party and in political detention for nearly five years.

However, being of an intellectual turn of mind and with a love for literature to boot, he became a famous poet in his own right and a famous, albeit controversial, writer too. Added to that, his renewed interest in Islam since around 1972, as a philosophical and scientific political thought made him sit uneasy in his party chairman’s position. He therefore resigned that position in 1984. His attempt to bring reforms into the United Malays National Organization, which he joined in 1986, failed and he quit active politics in 1992.

Career and Works

After leaving University, he worked for a while as a reasearch officer at the Malaysian Language and Literary Agency in Kuala Lumpur, then took a teaching post at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London for four years and then returned to Malaysia to teach in a secondary school in Penang. Being of a free spirit and not inclined to follow rules too much, his services were terminated by the school authorities in 1969 for distributing socialist party literature to his students. He became a free lance writer, translator, journalist and teacher after that and ever since.

Kassim’s political and philosophical interests introduced him to the LaRouche’s political-philosophical movement in the United States, to the revolutionary Baathist Party in Iraq and to the U.S.-domiciled, Tucson-based Egyptian Quran scholar, Dr. Rashad Khalifa. He has attended conferences held by all these organizations.

Kassim’s interests are diverse. Literature, politics, philosophy and religion -- these are his major interests, and he has written books and essays on them. He has been awarded the honourary Doctrate of Letters by the National University of Malaysia in 1985 and the Poetry Award of the Malaysian National Writers’ Association in 1987. His works include books on Islamic social theory (1984), on Prophetic Traditions (1986), an interesting account of his political detention (1983); and several collections of literary and political essays as well as an anthology of verses (1967). He published two major philosophical essays, one a criticism of Marxism (Dewan Bahasa, December, 1975, and another on the meaningfulness of life (Pemikir, Oct.-Dec., 1997. He has also edited several classical Malay works. Most of his works are in Malay. The work on the Prophetic Traditions, which was hotly and widely debated when it came out and for which some religious authorities pronounced him apostate, has been translated into English and Arabic (1997).

He is currently working on a Malay translation of the Quran, his autobiography and on editing a new edition of the famous work of the Malay 19th century writer, Hikayat Abullah, while running the Malaysian Quranic Society of which he is the head (since 1995)as well as being the Chairman of Penang Port Workers’ Co-operative (since 1997).

He likes to begin work early in the morning at three and retire to bed at 9.30 p.m. after a day’s labour of between 12 to 15 hours. Often he works seven days a week.

Family and Friends

In his busy schedule, he makes time for his family, with whom he discusses family and other matters on irregular on Saturday evenings. He is fond of all his five grand-children, four of whom stay in Penang, and he sees them every week when he is not out of Penang. He likes to have discussions with friends whom he invites for lunch or for after dinner coffee. His wife, Shariffah Fawziah binti Syed Yussoff Alsagoff, the daughter of a police officer in Selangor, married him in 1960 and bore him their two daughters and one son. She shares with him his world outlook and helps him with the clerical side of his work.

***