After this generally favourable feedback, Hamka decided to publish it with a private publisher owned by his friend M. Syarkawi; by using a private publisher he avoided the censorship imposed on authors by Balai Pustaka, the official publisher of the colonial government. A second printing was with Syarkawi's publisher, then the next five printings, beginning in 1951, were by Balai Pustaka, which had become the state-owned publisher of Indonesia after independence in 1945. The eighth printing, in 1961, was published by Nusantara in Jakarta, with printings after that by Bulan Bintang. The work has also had several printings in Malaysia.