Opening Remarks at the Intellectual Discourse on Wasatiyyah

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Assalamualaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh

Salam Sejahtera

dan Salam 1Malaysia

YBhg Dato’ Sri Dr Zaleha Kamaruddin, Rector of IIUM,

YBhg Tan Sri Prof Dr Kamal Hassan,

Deputy Rectors and Executive Directors of IIUM,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The world population today stands 7.1 billion people, residing in 196 countries. The number of religions listed as ‘major religions’ are 14, including five that have more than 1 billion followers each. The key theme emerging from these numbers is ‘diversity’. The challenge for current and future generation of leaders is to lead the people and the nations of diverse background towards growth and prosperity amidst deteriorating quality of our environment and increasingly scarce resources. This challenge of meeting unlimited ‘wants’ with limited resources is not new. But the scale now is unprecedented. The market forces by themselves are not perfect to bring the equilibrium. The invisible hand of Adam Smith has not been very benevolent to the less fortunate segments of the society. When we add a political angle to the imperfect market conditions, this task of leading the nations and people becomes much-much more challenging. The race is on for every country to hoard as much of the limited resources as possible for its own people and growth. Our diverse background and the competition for resources have led us to witness one too many conflict.

2.      Diversity is a fact of life. We should not aim for a ‘merger’ of cultures, so that we can all go home with a warm feeling that we are all the same. Problem solved. No. God created us this way, so that we look for the goodness in the diversity and learn from each other. Colours of diversity animate life better than the narrow duality of black and white.

3.      Ideally, we want to celebrate our cultural diversity and promote a vibrant and progressive society. Of course, it is easier said than done. Acknowledging differences, accommodating where possible, admitting incompatibility where necessary are important values and a reflection of a mature society.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

4.      This is where we hope Wasatiyyah will pave the way for the world to follow. Academia has an advantage to lead this noble cause. As an institution that celebrates the pursuit and expansion of knowledge, academia can claim the higher ground in being a neutral party. Academia does not discriminate on any account, be it race, religion or nationality. We can push this agenda further than any other bodies by virtue of our neutrality. We should seize this advantage and capitalise on it- for IIUM, for Islam.

5.      An honest dialogue is the only antidote for prejudice, discrimination and extremism. InshaAllah, I hope tonight’s discourse will be a stepping stone for further study and research in this area. I am confident that our International Institute of Wasatiyyah and IIUM in general have an important role to assume in tackling these global challenges.

6.      The great Islamic traditions of Baghdad, Jerusalem and Granada demonstrated how people from all religions were learning from each other. It was a manifestation of what Islam preaches. It showed Islam allows peaceful human interaction and fruitful collaboration regardless of people’s background. Though the recent history has been a far cry from the golden days of Islam, we can bring those days back. Islam had given us the guidance to do it then. We can do it again. We must.

7.      On that note, I thank the organisers for this timely discourse, and wish everyone a fruitful discussion, InshaAllah.

Wabillahi taufik wal-hidayah, wassalamu’alaikum, Warahmatullahi wabarakatuh