ALIF SOCIETY has a long love affair with Malaysian Education. Malaysian Universities have helped graduate over three hundred ambitious young boys and girls who are gainfully employed in Mauritius and abroad, in a variety of fields such as: engineering, actuarial science, architecture and finance, including Islamic finance. In fact, the first two Mauritian Graduates in Islamic banking were sponsored by Alif.
Alif Society girls, as in most societies, have proved to be head and shoulders above the boys …………………… one is leading a team of 30 researchers on cancer at the University of Southampton in England where an Alif surgeon is practicing and one is the lead member of a team in Canada to install plane simulators around the world. This brilliant young lady is spending more time in the air than on solid ground and more often than not, “flies” to her dream motherland on her simulator.
Covid 19 had imposed a total ban on the face to contact between Alif management with that of the Malaysian Universities. Virtual communication is a poor alternative to a physical meeting between two partners in negotiating collaboration. The opening of both Mauritian and Malaysian skies allowed Alif President to renew contacts.
One important meeting took place in Perlis, the smallest Malaysian state which houses a few Universities, at UNIMAP or University Malaysia Perlis, a foremost Engineering Institution and KUIPS, a newly set-up institution dedicated to Islamic Studies. Malaysia lives the middle of the Road Islam and has a faculty of Islamic Religion in all its Institutions of Higher Learning; KUIPS, on the other hand is dedicated totally to Islamic Studies.
The President of Alif, Dawood Auleear, was received the HRH Raja Muda [Prince] Perlis over lunch in Kangar, capital of Perlis, where he had a discussion with the leaders of the two Perlis Institutions in the presence of the Chancellor, [HRH Raja Muda Perlis]. The outcome would surely please Muslims here: HRH has offered five scholarships yearly to anyone to graduate in all fields of Islamic Knowledge. The quantum is elastic to accommodate more if the need is felt. KUIPS would be willing to send lecturers to Mauritian Islamic Schools if they receive any request and partner, if invited, in Forums organised by local Islamic Formations on topics relevant to the present needs of the Ummah.