Religious reformers played a large role in developing and disseminating ideas with magazines and periodicals like al-Imam' published in Singapore by Tahir Jalaluddin between 1906 to 1908, and al-Munir published in Penang by Abdullah Ahmad between 1911 to 1916. These in turn were primarily influenced by the Egyptian Islamic reform magazine, al-Manar published in Cairo by Rashid Rida from 1898 to 1936. While these publications were primarily concerned with the Islamic religion, it also touched extensively on the social, political and economic conditions of the Malays.
One of the first such movements was the New Hope Society (Malay: Persekutuan Pengharapan Belia) that was established in Johor Bahru in 1916. On 14 September 1923, a movement was established in Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt by students from British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies known as the Al-Jam'iyah Al-Khairiyah lit-tholabah Al-Azhariyah Al-Jawiyah (renamed in 1937 to the Indonesia Malaya Convention or Perhimpunan Indonesia Malaya; PERPINDOM).Composed primarily of students influenced by the Young Turks movement and later the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement encouraged intentional political and religious discourse through periodicals like Osman Abdullah's Seruan Al-Azhar (Al-Azhar Clarion) and Pilehan Timur (Oriental Choice).