Mat Kilau, The Malay Warrior

OUT of the many Malay warriors of Pahang who stood up against the British in the late 1880’s, only one lived to witness with his very own eyes the nation’s independence. He was Mat Kilau, the son of local chieftain Imam Perang Rasu (aka Tok Gajah), and one of the Malay warriors who rebelled between the 1880s and 1890s when the colonial masters extended their rule to Pahang. Mat Kilau even had the opportunity to shout the magical word “Merdeka” on August 31, 1957, something that his contemporaries Datuk Bahaman, Haji Abdul Rahman Limbong and Tok Janggut or the earlier ones like Datuk Maharaja Lela and Dol Said did not live to do. But on that historic day, none of the hundreds who turned up at the state mosque field in Kuantan realised that the high-spirited but frail-looking centenarian standing among them was Mat Kilau, the man who once tormented the British.