Машуми
Harahap was born in Medan, North Sumatra on December 27 1917. His father, Junus Harahap, was a prosecutor. Burhanuddin studied law as well. In 1939 he passed the entrance exam for the Rechtshoogeschool te Batavia, the first law school in the Dutch East Indies, but it was interrupted by the Second World War and the Japanese invasion. He would end up completing the degree at the newly founded Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. In 1946, during the Indonesian Revolution, he joined the Masyumi Party (the Council of Indonesian Muslim Associations), an Islam-oriented party.