December Speech During Book Launching

SPEECH OF APPRECIATION
20 DECEMEBER 2014 / 27 SAFAR 1436 H
International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS)

Assalamualaikum w.b.t.

Very good morning,

1. Mr Chairman, Dr. Mohamed Azam Mohamed Adil

2. Profesor Hashim Kamali
Director International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS),

Our honourable guest Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr. Osman Bakar
Chair Professor and Director of Sultan Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies (SOASCIS) Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Respected guests, ladies and gentlemen, our young people, brothers and sisters.

On behalf of President of Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM), Mr. Amidi Abdul Manan I would like to welcome all of you to our public lecture and book launching today. Mr. Amidi is currently in Bangi officiating another important programme of ABIM and will later on join us in the middle of our programme.
First of all, we would like to reserve our special thanks to Professor Osman Bakar for inviting us to co-host this historical moment together with IAIS. We are indeed honoured to host and organize a lecture for a global muslim scholar, thinker and intellectual like Profesor Osman who is also included once as the five hundred most influential Muslims.

Secondly our special thanks also go to IAIS for their supportive effort to co-organize this program together with ASASI, IBT and AKK. I think this the fourth and fifth programmes that we have the opportunity to co-organize with IAIS including Dr. Jasser Auda’s workshop and the latest postponed programme with Professor Tariq Ramadan. It symbolizes a good combination between the adult and youth, academician and activist and researcher and advocate. We do hope that this corroboration with prolonged in the future for the benefit of ummah at large.

Professor Osman is going to talk about Islam and the Future of Human Civilisation and it come at the right time to address the Muslim world on the real jihad to ignite social change and develop civilisation for the betterment of ummah. Nowadays a few of the Muslim tends to narrow down the term of jihad and limited it only to carry arms and weapon in battle field as some of the Malaysian young people joined ISIS in Syria. We should instead focus our strength and top priority to reinvigorate our glory civilisation in the Muslim world especially in Malaysia which based on the knowledge culture as mentioned by Professor Osman in the early chapter of the book. Professor Osman also allocates a special chapter illustrating the golden age of science in Andalus and it reminds us to Almarhum Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali which described Malaysia as the second Andalus.

Therefore this subject matter is essentially and extremely important nowadays to be discussed and I believe Professor Osman with his futuristic thinking and social imagination will guide us practically on how to build up human civilisation based on Islamic reference in the future which is the only solution for the turbulence endured by world residents.

With his title as the public intellectual activist and his vast experience locally and internationally will offer us insightful and powerful ideas in this subject matter and inspiring our bright young people to follow the footstep of Professor Osman in becoming a contributing great scholar that benefit the ummah.

Finally ABIM will remain committed in the intellectual agenda and we would like to record our deepest and heartfelt congratulation to Professor Osman for this publication. ABIM is really proud to have our former senior like Professor Osman and I pray to Allah that this book Civilisation and the Modern World will benefits us most.

With that, I thank you.

JUFITRI JOHA
Vice President of ABIM