From Dr Abu Bakar Abdul Majeed
Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid, an extraordinary Malaysian, passed away early Saturday morning.
I received numerous alerts soon after his passing. One was from an old friend with the devastating news: “Assalam Dato. Forward the above message to you for your info as the late Tun remembers and thinks highly of you.” My short reply was, “Thanks, yes, Tun was a great teacher, actually”.
I am grateful to Ahmad Sarji for the numerous precious lessons picked up from him when I was a senior fellow at the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (Ikim) in the late 1990s.
Ikim was helmed at the time by two highly illustrious personalities – Ahmad Sarji as chairman and Ismail Ibrahim, as director-general. Together, they superbly carried out activities to enhance Islamic understanding as prescribed by Ikim’s founder and then prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Ikim became a magnet for multicultural and interfaith dialogues. Intellectual discourse on the worldview of Islam was the mainstay of the institute.
Ahmad Sarji took great interest and played an active part in ensuring the successful implementation of the institute’s annual activities.
At every event, before the keynote address, the chairman would have to offer the introductory remark to set the scene of the discourse. As his welcoming speech was normally limited to 10 minutes, he would painstakingly go through the draft text, so that it would be most impactful.
The coordinator of every event would have to sit with him to go through the text, line by line. For sure, there would be plenty of strikethroughs and revisions. In short, he was meticulous.
Also, in every speech, there had to be something new, something creative, something not normally heard of. Every remark was aimed at highlighting an important problem statement for the speakers and participants to tackle.
Tun managed his staff with candour. He would patiently listen to everyone’s point of view, before always coming up, on hindsight, with the most sensible decision. At times, he would be seen fidgeting with the paper clip. He was not bored or anything; as a neuroscientist, I know this was like his neurological harmonics regulator, with the intention to keep him in focus.
I was honoured to be assigned to contribute to a fortnightly column in a national newspaper. In writing more than 100 articles over a period of five years, there was only one instance when he called me to explain why I had written a piece that was later criticised by a reader. It was not a reprimand. His only words were, “Be more careful”.
When I left Ikim in 2002, Ahmad Sarji and Toh Puan were kind enough to invite me and my wife for a private dinner. That was a great honour for me, as he was such a great person, and I was a junior member of his staff.
Before we parted that evening, he said: “Bakar, you are young and have a great future.” That was it, short and precise, nevertheless a wonderful motivation.
Later, when I joined Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and was appointed dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, and then assistant vice-chancellor of research and rector, UiTM Selangor, numerous tips I picked up from his unassuming leadership style were put into practice. I believed they all worked well for the university.
The last time I communicated with Ahmad Sarji was when inviting him to officiate at the UiTM Faculty of Film, Theatre and Animation’s event to commemorate P Ramlee. He agreed but could not make it due to a last-minute emergency.
However, he did prepare a text and requested me to read it. As usual, it contained unique proposals on research that should be conducted to explore aspects of P Ramlee’s early foray into show business. A few days later, he called to find out the outcome of the event, again demonstrating his keen interest in whatever he was involved in.
It was not unusual that when you were with him, he would be stopped by “strangers” who would proudly introduce themselves as his ex-staff members. I am sure he must have left a strong and lasting impression on them as a superior.
Another thing about Ahmad Sarji was his passion in the development of noble characters of the young. He would gladly accept invitations to speak and share about his disciplined upbringing in schools.
It was most inspiring that when he was to be awarded the Tokoh Maal Hijrah in 1999, he indicated that he would like to focus his acceptance speech on youngsters. I proposed that he ended it with a poem by Dorothy Law Nolte titled Children Learn What They Live, and he gladly obliged.
The late Ahmad Sarji was also an accomplished author. In his book My Recollections of Tun Razak, he summed up Malaysia’s second prime minister as follows: “It was the ‘unheroic’ and the ‘modest’ in him that endeared him so particularly to all of us: his kind looks, his occasional but always generous acknowledgment of what we did, his unselfconsciousness, his beaming smile of thanks when he was aware that we had worked hard to realise his dreams, his modesty, his personal frugality and above all his moderation in all things.”
On my recollections of Ahmad Sarji, I believe he, too, was imbued with such benevolent qualities. I shall look up to him not only as an extraordinary mentor, but most importantly, in William Arthur Ward’s words, a great teacher who perpetually inspires.
May Allah bless his soul.
Prof Dr Abu Bakar Abdul Majeed is with the Brain Research Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam Campus.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.