 When in the field, the people in the village had repeatedly asked him to send some letters home, yet he declined.This worried his father, who asked Sutan Mansur Ahmad Rashid to pick him up and persuade him to go home.Sutan's plea finally convinced Malik to return to his hometown in Maninjau, which at the time was in ruins due to the 1926 earthquake, including his father's home in Padang Panjang Lantah.