23-08-2004 - 20th IIUM Convocation Presidential Speech

Speech of YB. Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, President of International Islamic University of Malaysia at the 20th IIUM Convocation Ceremony - 2nd Session on 23th August 2004.

Assalaamu'alaikum Warahmatullaahi Wabarakaatuh.

Bismillaa hir rahmaa nir rahim.
Alhamdulillaa hi rabbil ‘alamin.
Wassalaa tu wassalaa mu ‘ala asyrafil anbiaa ii wal mursalin.
Wa’alaa aa lihi wasah bihi ajma’in.

Yang Berbahagia Professor Dr. Mohd Kamal Hassan,
Rektor Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia,
Ahli-ahli Lembaga Gebenor dan Majlis,
Timbalan-timbalan Rektor,
Ahli-ahli Senat,
Kakitangan akademik dan pentadbiran,
Dif-dif terhormat,
Ibu-ibu, bapa-bapa, waris-waris,
Para pelajar dan para hadirin yang dihormati sekelian.

SAMBUTAN

Sama-sama kita bersyukur kepada Allah s.w.t. atas limpah rahmatNya dan keizinanNya sehingga kita berada dalam keadaan sihat dan sejahtera di dalam majlis konvokesyen yang ke-20 pada hari ini.

Selaku Presiden Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia, saya berasa sungguh bertuah kerana dapat bersama-sama dengan ibu-bapa, waris dan sanak saudara kepada graduan dari seluruh dunia yang akan menerima pelbagai ijazah didalam majlis ini.

CONGRATULATIONS

Kepada semua para graduan dan ibu-bapa saya ucapkan tahniah.

It is both a great pleasure and a privilege, as President of the International Islamic University Malaysia, to have this opportunity, today, to congratulate you, who are our bright, hardworking and talented graduates, for your achievements, after having persevered over the years, and thereby completed your degree courses in the various skills and fields of knowledge.

Your degrees represent the culmination of your hard work and the rewards for your effort and enterprise.

CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE

I am sure with the knowledge, virtue and discipline instilled in all graduates, in variable doses, quality, quantity and intensities, while studying at this university, and with the good reputation of the university, to back you up, you are now confident, and prepared to face, the many new, varied and unexpected challenges in the real world outside the campus.

Let us hope that while the reputation of the university backs you up, your service and reputation in the real world, in words and in deeds, will globally enhance the good name of the university.

BUSHIDO PRINCIPLES

Courage ( berani ), trustworthiness ( amanah ), discipline, hard-work ( rajin ), and loyalty ( setia ), are Islamic values, which should accompany you, by different permutations and combinations, and give you the strength to handle any responsibility.

These Islamic values when adopted by non-Muslims, like the Japanese Samurais with their bushido principles, have been proven to have brought them great success and prosperity.

LAST SPEECH

This is my fifth convocation as President, in my present term of appointment.

I have been very proud to be associated with this university over the last few years. I have been fortunate to be exposed to this environment, especially with the scholars, local and foreign, coming from around 50 countries, with doctorates and professional degrees earned from leading universities around the globe.

I am also proud to have been associated with the thousands of brilliant students chosen from all over the world, from around 100 countries.

EYES OF HOPE

As I looked into the eyes of students I met on this campus, I have not seen any student with pathetic eyes, of lost hopes. I could see hope, determination, wonderment and will, in the eyes of everyone that I have met

SYNERGY OF SCHOLARS AND STUDENTS

It is this abundance of knowledge, stored in the granaries of our scholars, combined with the will in our patriotic young students, which will synergise for the betterment of the Muslim Ummah.

COMMITMENT TO ISLAM

As I have not heard any whisper of a committment, either locally or internationally, by any institution of higher learning, to voluntarily shoulder the responsibility of restoring the respects for Islam and Muslims in the world, I would therefore like to put on record that we are here to do just that.

To restore the respects for Islam and Muslims in the world.

PROVOKING THE AUDIENCE

In my five speeches in the previous four convocations, I have stressed on the importance of learning and focussed on the graduates’ role for the future advancement of the Ummah.

I have also tried to frighten my audience with morbid pictures of future threat to the Muslim Ummah, but I am afraid that should I succeed in this effort, I would have frightened them into giving up.

MUSLIMS KILL MUSLIMS WITHOUT NON-MUSLIMS’ HELP

Muslims of the world are now lucky that we have the non-Muslims to blame for every misery that we suffer. State Terrorists are killing our innocents, destroying our properties, blurring our future, and freezing our hopes. This, we will not forget.

But we must also remember that when the first Muslim killed another Muslim, in the history of man, it happened without the involvement of the enemies of Islam.

We had only ourselves to blame.

Since then till to-day, Muslims are still unable to sort out their differences as our priorities are guided by our pride and our prejudices.

As future leaders of the Muslim Ummah under-graduates and graduates of this university have therefore a role to play in this restoration effort.

FAITH IN OURSELVES AND IN ISLAM

But the greatest threat to Muslims to-day is not from the enemies of Islam.

It is the loss of confidence, and the infection of inferiority complex, in the Muslim Ummah of their capacity to reestablish themselves in the traditional and gracious Islamic ways.

RECOVERY OF CONFIDENCE

It is therefore our responsibility to reinstate this lost confidence if we are to restore our image and the respect that we have lost with it.

It is this loss of confidence, which causes us to run berserk, and behave in improper ways, as our enemies do, in reacting to events, thereby damaging our reputation.

We can restore our confidence by reminding ourselves of our history.

GROWTH OF EMPIRE

Less than one hundred years after the death of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., in 632, Muslim’s rule has covered an area nearly one-and-a-half times bigger than the territorial extent of the Roman empire, during the reign of Emperor Trajan.

It became the greatest power on earth.

Muslim’s conquests have united the ancient civilizations of the Middle East under a single rule for the first time since the days of Alexander the Great.

THE IQRA’ CULTURE

This was made possible by the Muslims’ response to the call of Iqra’.

We should remind ourselves that 10 years before Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. was upgraded to become Rasullah the Chinese have invented the printed press. The Prophet s.a.w. realised this in his interaction with the Chinese traders whom he met on the Silk Route in Syria where he was doing business.

Upon receipt of the firman ‘ Iqra ‘, Muslims were guided by such early hadiths as:

‘ Seek ye knowledge though it be in China’,

‘ Seek ye knowledge from the cradle to the grave’, and

‘ Knowledge is incumbent upon every male and every female’.

To make the ‘ Iqra’ culture ‘ possible the Ummah had to learn the printing of books from China.

The first paper-making factory was established in Baghdad in the year 793. Spreading westward the next paper mill was built in Spain in 1150. Only in 1494 did England have its first paper mill.

You can see how the West learnt from the Muslims.

The ‘ Iqra’ culture ‘ did not forbid Muslims to learn from non-Muslim resources. Had it been so then Alpharabius (al-Farabi) ( d. 950 ) would not have been able to give 40 lectures on Aristotle’s ‘ PHYSICS ‘ and 80 lectures on Aristotle’s ‘RHETORICS ‘.

Arab scholars were known to have made commentaries on the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Galen, Ptolemy and many others.

This intensive intellectual activity was going on in the Muslim world while Europe was going through the so-called Dark Ages, in which science was dead and the main preoccupation was theology which was regarded as the ‘queen of the sciences’

Without this intellectual activity and the translations of the Hellenistic legacy into Arabic, then the west would not have been able to later retranslate all these knowledge into Latin, the language of learned Europe.

It is in this context that we claim our contribution to knowledge and to science by regularly mentioning in this campus of ours such names as Geber (Ibn Hayyan), al-Kindi, al-Khwarizmi, Albategnius (al-Battani), Rhazes (al-Razi), Alhazen (al-Haytham), Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd).

This claim is not fiction, but it is the truth.

It is because of this Muslims’s leadership in the field of knowledge, and in the fulfillment of the ‘ Iqra’ Culture ‘, that we became great and we had an empire.

WITHOUT IIUM

All these achievements were acquired without the existence of an institution such as IIUM. But they did it.

What is holding us back is our indecision.

The scholars and the students of this university must therefore make a decision that we will do better in our effort to restore the glorious image of Islam and the Muslims.

WAR AND DIPLOMACY

When Khalid ibn Walid and Abu Ubaidah, on opposite sides of Damascus were trying to enter the Christian city, they eventually succeeded in different ways.

The valiant Khalid ibn Walid forced his way into Damascus and forcefully converted the Christians into becoming Muslims. On the other hand Abu Ubaidah negotiated his way into Damascus without any conversion.

Today, in 2004, as I recently visited Damascus, I was shown the side where Khalid ibn Walid forcefully converted the Christians, and the whole area have now become Christian again. Whereas on the side of Abu Ubaidah they have all converted to Islam.

We should therefore realise that force is not the answer to future glory.
 

Let them make this mistake, which they are of course making, as of now.

WHAT DO WE HAVE ?

What do we have to start with?

The Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the year 2002 gave a figure of 1,207,148,000 Muslims in the world comprising of:

Africa 323,556,000 - 26.8 %

Asia 845,341,000 - 70.0 %

Europe 31,724,000 - 2.7 %

Latin America 1,702,000 - 0.1 %

North America 4,518,000 - 0.4 %

  Oceania307,000 - 0.03 %

We have these figures and we also have IIUM.

Thank you.

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullaa hi wabarakaa tuh.

Gombak, 23rd August, 2004