{"id":1525,"date":"2014-04-09T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T02:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iiumtoday.fadhilahwahid.com\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2014-05-16T05:57:58","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T21:57:58","slug":"special-interview-with-tun-dr-mahathir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/?p=1525","title":{"rendered":"Special Interview with Tun Dr. Mahathir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Dr. Baharuddin Aziz<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) is truly the pride of the nation and the Muslim ummah.\u00c2\u00a0 It has come a long way towards becoming the premier global Islamic university, providing a variety of skill, scholarly, and knowledge-based programmes of study for the benefit of the Muslim ummah and of mankind, in general.<\/p>\n<p>Former Malaysian Prime Minister and Founding Father of IIUM, Hon. Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, expressed the view that IIUM is a special institution of higher learning in its own class, one which is geared towards improving the lot in life of Muslims in general.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Spearheading research and development in niche areas like Engineering, Medicine, Pharmacy, Syariah laws and Islamic Jurisprudence, Islamic Banking and Finance, Islamic History, Culture and Philosophy, Tourism and Hospitality, Islamic Arts and Architecture, and a host of other programmes, remain its cornerstones.<\/p>\n<p>\u0153With the skills and knowledge which they [the students] have acquired at the university, it is my earnest hope that they will return to their respective countriesand dedicate themselves towards nation building with the aim of improving the livelihood of the people.\u00c2\u00a0 Being future leaders, they must take bold steps to correct the weaknesses and to undertake measures to improve the socio-economic status of the people in their own countries,\u009d said Dr. Mahathir in a special interview with IIUM TV following the recent launching of the Tun Mahathir Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) Chair for Global Peace.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1721\" src=\"http:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Mahathir2.png\" alt=\"Mahathir2\" width=\"761\" height=\"482\" \/><\/p>\n<p>IIUM celebrated its 30<sup>th<\/sup> Anniversary last year (2013) and is poised to soar to greater heights by becoming the premier global Islamic university as it enters the fourth decade of its existence.\u00c2\u00a0 \u0153It is my earnest hope that the university will undertake measures and formulate strategies so that it will be comparable to renowned universities of higher learning in the world but within its own mould and aspirations.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever initiatives that are being undertaken, they should be within the scope of its vision and mission, moving towards achieving comprehensive excellence through networking and embracing state-of-the-art teaching and learning methodologies,\u009d he stressed.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, IIUM President, Tan Sri Rais Yatim, launched the Tun Mahathir Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) Chair for Global Peace which will be under the supervision of IIUMs Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyah of Laws (AIKOL).\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0He said that the Chair will provide a platform and linkage for discourse for galvanising knowledge, research, practical experience, and competency for scholars and practitioners with a focus towards peace building and humanitarian assistance.<\/p>\n<p>\u0153The Chair will focus on research with a specialisation on preserving global peace, inclusive of policy and legislative formulations as well as to issues related to genocide and the criminalisation of war perpetrators,\u009d said Tan Sri Rais.\u00c2\u00a0 Renowned scholar &#8212; and internationally recognised as the Father of Peace Studies &#8212; Prof. Johan Galtung, was announced as the first Chair holder of the Tun Mahathir Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) Chair for Global Peace.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FFaXBNK64bU<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dr. Baharuddin Aziz The International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) is truly the pride of the nation and the Muslim ummah.\u00c2\u00a0 It has come&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"nelio_content":{"isAutoShareEnabled":true,"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"followers":[],"suggestedReferences":[],"efiUrl":"","efiAlt":"","highlights":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/mahathir1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6799,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/6799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iium.edu.my\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}