Pre-independence After graduating from Leiden, Noor began working as a lawyer in
Banjarmasin. He worked there between 1936 and 1939. Starting in July 1939 until the
Japanese invasion of the Indies, he became a member of the
Volksraad. He began his term as a member of the Nationalist faction led by
Mohammad Husni Thamrin called the , but only a few months later in the summer of 1939 he left it and joined a breakaway Sumatran group called the , which was chaired by
Mangaradja Soeangkoepon. The other members of this new faction were
Abdul Rasjid and
Mohammad Yamin. . In 1941, he reportedly joined a Japanese
fifth column conspiracy to sabotage the Indies' defense for the upcoming invasion, alongside other nationalists such as
Achmad Soebardjo and
Alexander Andries Maramis and Japanese agents such as
Shigetada Nishijima, though, due to the Japanese campaign's rapid success, the sabotage ended up not being required. In the immediate aftermath of the Japanese invasion, Indonesian nationalists saw the campaign as one of liberation, and formed several draft cabinets in expectation of handover of administrative duties to the nationalist leaders. In one of these cabinets, Noor was proposed as a deputy-minister of state. The proposals were quickly rejected by the Japanese, who soon prohibited displays of Indonesian nationalism to the disappointment of prior collaborators. Noor was initially an adviser to the
Imperial Japanese Army in the-renamed
Jakarta, before later being appointed by the
Imperial Japanese Navy, alongside Manadonese
Sam Ratulangi, as advisers in managing
Sulawesi, which the navy was tasked with occupying. ==References==