By Izzud deen Redzuan
GOMBAK, 27 November 2014: This year’s biggest event, “Global Ummatic Festival 2014”, ended tonight with the closing ceremony  officiated by the President of IIUM, Tan Sri Dr. Rais Yatim, conducted at Main Hall, CAC.
This festival is another effort by the University to spread unity among students from different nationalities, cultures and heritages.
Accompanying the President at the closing ceremony were the Rector of IIUM, Prof. Datuk Seri Zaleha Kamaruddin, Deputy Rector (Internationalisation, Industry & Community Relations), Prof. Dr. Abdel Aziz Berghout, Ambassador of Libya and India, and representatives of Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Maldives, Yemen, Afghanistan and Turkey in Malaysia.
The main theme for this years Global Ummatic Festival is ˜By the Ummah We Stand.
The closing ceremony started with the recitation of Quranic verses by Majed followed by closing speech of closing by Tan Sri Dr Rais Yatim.
In his remarks he said that this event has successfully developed a community of culture lovers who  adhered the arts  and has introduced the heritage of Islam to the outside world.
He also acknowledged that the presence of a big number of students tonight was a proof of success of this event, well-planned one, and had achieved its main goal.
To this end, he called on the students to act as ambassadors to further promote the heritage of Islam and their own culture.
œI believed with enthusiasm you have will foster the culture of connectivity, the love of each other, the brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam to the culture that we adopt from home, he added.
Towards the end of his speech, he congratulated Prof. Dr. Abdel Aziz Berghout and his committees for their contributions to attract more than 40 countries to participate in this festival.
A special performance by Shazet and his teams were next on the nights agenda before a multicultural performances by Indonesia followed by Yemen, Singapore and Bangladesh.
Of the multicultural performances, Singapore brought cultural dances’ performance which representing the Malay, Chinese, Indian and contemporary culture in their country.
The nights schedule was continued by Imaad’s performances. He had shown an amazing talent, singing on the stage meanwhile drawing khat at the same time which he later presented the painting to the IIUM President.
Award giving ceremony for the ˜Best Booth Ever was performed by Tan Sri Dr. Rais Yatim accompanied by the Deputy Rector (Internationalisation, Industry & Community Relations), Prof. Dr. Abdel Aziz Berghout. Yemen won the first place followed by Turkey as runner-up, Tajikistan, Malaysia and Syria.
Before the cultural performances award, the Programme Manager of Global Ummatic Festival, Samadal Salah, expressed her appreciation towards committees commitments and thanked all students who took part and enlivened the festival.
She also said that, this event was one way to bring the diversity of students culture into one hall and she only started the planning in the library with three individuals but ended up with 3000 students who came over to celebrate the festival.
Towards the end of closing ceremony, the cultural performances awards and food competition was delivered by the Rector of IIUM, Prof. Datuk Seri Zaleha Kamaruddin accompanied by Prof. Dr. Abdel Aziz Berghout and the Programme Manager, Samadal Salah.
For the cultural performances awards, as expected, Singapore was the amazing victory of this year’s cultural dance performance after defeating Bangladesh as first runner-up and Indonesia at the third place. To highlight, this was the first time Singaporean students joining the cultural dance performance and what an amazing start.
This years festival had witnessed Libya as the victory of this years food competition followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina and China. Congratulations to all winners.***
Photos of Zulhamka Rosli