First Day of Eid al-Adha @ IIUM
I started the very first day of Eid al-Adha at IIUM Mosque. Immediately, after the Eid prayer, everyone had the great occssion to wish everyone Eid Mubarak. As for me, I got an opportunity to meet with old friends amongst International staff who are still serving IIUM.
On the way to have the breakfast with International students at Kullyyah of Economics and Management Cafe, Br Rector and I stopped at Yemenis breakfast corner at the cafe of Kulliyyah of Education. We enjoyed the Yemenis flavour of breakfast. There were about 400 participants. Amazing.
We quickly excused ourselves to join the main breakfast session at KENM. I took the opportunity to go around the entire cafe to greet everyone and to have a little chat about Eid and their hometown and their study. Everyone was excited. I hope to sustain and to bring this environment to the next level. Diversity - which is God-made - was never a liability. The failure to engage with diversity is a liability which is man-made.
The last stop was at slaugthering area. The enviroment was so amazing. The students and staff are working together to manage this great ibadah event. The IIUM Mosque and one NGO from Germany (Hecene or Hasanah) have collectively contributed more than 30 cows. I was impressed with the whole environment that IIUM has been able to create for the last many years. Internationalisation core thrust of IIUM is working very well though there is room for improvement.
While walking with Tan Sri Rector from one place to another, we managed to talk about great ideas and insights. Amongst others, we feel that IIUM needs to create and promote social currency to complement the commercial side of volunterism work. We also mooted the idea to set up centre of excelllence to look into a few bottle- neck issues such as distribution of qurban meet to all (without any limitation of race and religion) and in looking at zakat as sosial transformative tool instead of religious-charitable work.
Wishing everyone Eid Mubarak...may Allah the Almighty accept our good deeds in the entire days of Eid al-Adha and Tashriq.
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