Tun Dr Hasmah Mohd Ali, 1926-2026
Malaysia said goodbye on Monday to a woman many called its mother. Tun Dr Hasmah Mohamad Ali, wife of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, died at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur on 28 September 2026. She was 100. Her son, Tan Sri Mokhzani Mahathir, confirmed the news.
By evening she had been laid to rest with full state honours at the National Mausoleum (Pusara Negara) in Putrajaya. It was a fitting close to a life that spanned a century of the nation’s story.
A doctor first
Before she was Ibu Negara, she was a young woman with a stethoscope. Born on 12 July 1926 in Klang, Selangor, the sixth of ten children, Hasmah entered the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore in 1947. Few Malay women of her generation could picture themselves in a doctor’s coat. She graduated in 1955 and joined the Health Ministry, where she worked in public health and maternal and child care. In 1974 she became the first woman appointed State Maternal and Child Health Officer in Kedah.
It was at that same Singapore college that she met a fellow student named Mahathir. They married on 5 August 1956. This August they marked their 70th wedding anniversary.
Redefining the First Lady’s role
When her husband became prime minister in 1981, she took on a public role that would span 1981 to 2003 and again 2018 to 2020. Rather than treat it as ceremonial, she used it to champion causes she cared about: women’s health, family planning, adult literacy, drug abuse prevention and mental health support. In 1995 she led Malaysia’s delegation to the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women.
In 2019 the Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute formally honoured her with the title Ibu Negara, “Mother of the Nation”. Malaysians had been calling her that for years.
A gentle presence
Those who knew her describe warmth and humour, a contrast to her husband’s famously blunt style. Mahathir has called her the backbone of his success. In her 2016 autobiography, My Name Is Hasmah, she called him her “hero”.
She also had a quiet sense of self. In 2024 she asked the public to stop adding “Siti” to her name, which had been attached socially in the 1970s, and to call her simply Hasmah.
She never lost her connection to learning and the arts. She served as the first chancellor of Multimedia University from 1997 to 2012, and the university came to call her its “Ibu Universiti”. A RM10 million scholarship in her name supports creative arts and music.
A farewell for the nation
Her funeral prayers were held at As-Syarif Mosque in Seri Kembangan, attended by thousands. Mahathir, 101, used a motorised wheelchair and an oxygen tube but stayed present throughout the rites. He wept at her graveside. He then scattered rose water and bunga rampai (fragrant petals and leaves) on her grave, followed by their children. She was buried beside Tun Endon Mahmood, and the immediate family was presented with the Jalur Gemilang.
The tributes came from across the political divide. The King and Queen, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and many others mourned her. Zahid shared a small, moving detail: his wife had visited Hasmah only last week, and found her speaking often about faith and the hereafter.
Her seven children survive her, along with Mahathir and a large extended family. She left Malaysians something harder to measure than titles: the example of a woman who led by being steady, kind and useful.