KUALA LUMPUR: Besides being guided by the spirit of brotherhood (ikhwan), Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said Muslim countries can also learn from the Chinese phrase long ma jing shen (dragon-horse spirit) – used to describe energy and vitality.
-Advertisement-
“Wherever I go today, I keep promoting two values that I believe our educators in Malaysia should embrace.
“The first one is ikhwan (brotherhood), which is well elaborated in the hadith and by Muslim scholars.
“The second is the spirit I learn from our Chinese community, long ma jing shen, which is the spirit of the dragon and the horse.
“This is what pushes the Chinese community to be what they are today and make the Chinese community excellent in business.
“With the combination of ikhwan and the long ma jing shen, we can bring change to the Muslim world,” he said in a special session at the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre here on Friday (Dec 20).
Dr Maszlee said there was a need to promote a “renewal-oriented education” which emphasises a continuous improvement in one’s approach to knowledge.
-Advertisement-
As such, he added, ethics should be the guiding principle of harnessing knowledge and research.
“This is to ensure that bright minds do not give birth to corrupted knowledge,” he said.
He also added that more should be done to retain talented scholars and thinkers at universities.
“The Muslim world is the one place where scholars from all over the world cannot have permanent positions in universities.
“We lose talent to great universities in non-Muslim countries. We need to have a robust talent management strategy and salary package to attract the staff we need,” he said.
The summit, themed “The Role of Development in Achieving National Sovereignty”, will be discussing issues such as Islamophobia, the incarceration of Muslims around the globe and mass migration of Muslims due to civil wars.
Held from Dec 18 to 21, the conference is expected to host 450 delegates comprising intellectuals, politicians and leaders from 56 countries of the Islamic world. -The Star