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He told FMT he found it perplexing that mathematics and science were being taught in English while the language itself was not taught properly.
He also questioned the wisdom of picking mathematics and science for instruction in English out of the range of subjects that are taught in the education system.
Farid, a Malaysian who serves as a professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore, lamented what he saw as a lack of effort among Malaysian institutions to promote Malay as a language in which high quality academic research is published.
“People who have rigorous standards in writing academic papers tend to write in English,” he said, adding that the general lack of creativity in modern Malay literature and popular entertainment had also tended to lower the prestige of the national language.
He acknowledged that the low standard of Malay-language journals was one reason researchers were reluctant to write in Malay and said this could be “easily” rectified if publishers were to appoint editors who understand academic language and who would insist on high standards.
He recommended that universities provide incentives to academics to publish Malay journals instead of remaining obsessed with “chasing rankings” and thereby encouraging research written in English so as to be cited in international databases.
“University leaders should reward people for thinking independently,” he said.
He was also critical of what he called the “eurocentrism” of much university research and teaching, saying it was already becoming evident that references to eastern historical, philosophical and cultural traditions were being pushed aside.
He alleged that today’s university students generally had no knowledge of notable Malay-world scholars such as Hamzah Fansuri, Nuruddin ar-Raniri and Bukhari al-Jauhari.
“They may have heard of Munshi Abdullah, but they don’t know his ideas.”
He said eurocentrism was one of the ill effects of globalisation.
“If we want to be truly cosmopolitan and global, we have to be at home with all civilisations,” he added.
He said the Muslim scholars of old learned from both the east and west.
“Many of them were Persian, but spoke Arabic fluently, wrote in Arabic and were part of a larger intellectual tradition. They were interested in Greek works and in Indian works. They studied both eastern and western scholars and they developed a lot of original knowledge.”
Hamzah Fansuri, a 16th-century sufi based in Sumatra, is generally believed to be the first to expound, in written Malay, upon the concept of wahdat ul-wujud, which is often translated as “the oneness of being”. He is also said to be the first poet known to have rendered his poetry in written Malay.
Ar-Raniri was a 17th-century scholar who hailed from India, but who produced his most notable work, The Garden of Kings, while domiciled in Aceh. It was written in Malay. His body of work is considered to be some of the oldest examples of Islamic scholarship in South East Asia.
Al-Jauhari, another 17th-century scholar based in Aceh, is famous for his Taj us-Salatin (Crowns of Kings), also written in Malay. The book, which deals with governance, greatly influenced not only the Sumatran nobles, but also the Javanese kings and the Dutch rulers of Indonesia.
Munshi Abdullah, whose birth name was Abdullah bin Abd al-Kadir Munshi, was a 19th-century Malayan writer of mixed ancestry. He was an educator who remains popularly regarded as one of the greatest innovators of Malay literature.
Abdullah’s most important works are an autobiography and a record of his pilgrimage to Mecca.
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