By Sarah Nur Safiyyah
GOMBAK, 22 March 2023: Eight students of Shenandoah University from the United States of America discussed how history is taught differently in the US and Malaysia with IIUM students from the Department of History and Civilization during their visit to the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) on 14 March.
“The purpose of my students coming to the IIUM was to share on Islamic knowledge, and to be exposed to different cultures through intercultural communication in the global citizenship programme,” said Professor Hakeem Leonard from Shenandoah University,
Students of the IIUM History and the Civilization Department learned the history of America and discovered how such history course can be adopted in Malaysia.
Shenandoah University student, Axel Manica, shared that they “would learn about events like the 9/11 incident with a fundamental framework of world history that is more in-depth and having more specific ideas.”
The students discussed further on the 9/11 incident since it is associated with history, and they concluded that the incident has caused Islamophobia to spread worldwide and affect other countries, especially Muslim countries.
Both students from the IIUM and Shenandoah University discussed, based on their observation, that it was hard for Muslim countries to adapt to this situation because of Islamophobia spreading and influencing governments and politics across the globe.
Nevertheless, students from IIUM and Shenandoah University came the conclusion that the occurrences of Islamophobic incidences have reduced due to the improved understanding of political and social changes.
Students of IIUM and Shenandoah University agreed that better media representations have become led to individuals to be more accepting of Islam and its followers.
The exchange between the students was held at Al-Tabari meeting room, HS building, level 3 and it ended with a photography session involving IIUM and Shenadoah University students.***