 Fakih was born in Gresik , East Java , Dutch East Indies , on 2 March 1904 . His father , Usman Iskandar , was a wood merchant , and his mother , a housewife , was the daughter of an ulama ( scholar of Islam ) . The couple , who were of modest means , had four other children , and the family 's lack of a noble background meant the children were ineligible to receive an education at Dutch @-@ run schools . Instead , Fakih studied Islam from a young age , receiving much of his instruction from his father . At the age of ten he began studying at a pesantren ( Islamic boarding school ) in Gresik , finishing four years later . In 1919 he continued his studies at several pesantren outside the city , including ones in rural Gresik and in nearby <unk> . 
