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62Islam, Democracy and Human Rights in Contemporary Indonesiaa scholarship for his tertiary education, either at the RechtsHooge School (Law High School) in Jakarta, or theEconomische Hooge School (Economics High School) inRotterdam, the Netherlands.In fact, Natsir did not take up this opportunity. He preferredto work in the community as a teacher and set up private Islamicschools, an unpromising profession in economic terms. Besidesmanaging educational institutions, Natsir, together with AhmadHassan, also administered the Pembela Islam and AlLisan magazines. Even though Natsir did not undertake aformal higher education, he committed himself to self-study.His fluency in European languages enabled him to discoverEuropean heritages in history, philosophy, literature, politics andorientalism.Meanwhile, his knowledge of Arabic also enabled him toevaluate the classical and contemporary works of Muslimthinkers. During his youth, Natsir investigated various exegesesof the Qur%u2019an and was particularly interested in the works ofIbn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim. He was familiar with the worksof the 19th and 20th century modernist Muslims, such asMuhammad Abduh and Rashid Ridha of the Middle East, aswell as those of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Shibli Nu%u2019man and SyedAmeer Ali of South Asia. Although he was well-informed abouttheir works, it cannot be concluded that Natsir was deeplyinfluenced by these modernists. As Deliar Noer states, manyIndonesian Muslim reformers, such as Agus Salim and Natsir,had good access to investigating Islam from its primary sources.Investigating people%u2019s work functions as an attempt to broadenthe insight into individual thought creation in providing answersfor their own surrounding challenges.