Assalamualaikum.

“Let’s dash the final 100 metres to Jannah.”

The words kept ringing in my head, long after they were uttered.

Yesterday, I travelled for almost two hours in a train from Manchester to Nottingham, and back again by bus which took almost five hours including transit time, just for a three-hour session with Dr Amaluddin Ahmad organized by Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia UK Student Chapter (IMAM UKSC), of which I’m currently one of the High Committee. Dr Amal is the founder of IMAM UK Student Chapter back then in 2003 (or was it 2002?). He is currently Associate Professor and Head of Paediatrics Department, Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences (CUCMS). He is in the Europe to visit the IMAM branch in Czech and for the annual IMAM Symposium held in Dublin. The IMAM UKSC, specifically for the East Midlands region, grabbed the chance to organize a session with him.

Admittedly, I was not too excited to attend the talk. For one thing it was a considerable distance away, and I had just finished a hectic week of travels and activities for ReAwakening in neighbouring Sheffield. Furthermore, in a few hours’ time from now, I’ll be flying to Dublin for the Symposium. Not to mention my severely affected bank account, I believe my travel costs these days exceed my food expenses perhaps by twofolds.

Anyway, I gritted my teeth and headed there anyway, on my own from Manchester, mainly because of a sense of responsibility. I’m one of the High Comm, and I moaned about lack of support from IMAM members for our programs, how can I shy away when support is needed? I don’t want to act like an average YB.

The charismatic Dr Amal was supposed to talk about “Medicine in Malaysia : Past, Present, and Future.” However, he focused on another topic altogether (which was VERY GOOD). He brought with him the slides that the pioneers of IMAM Student Chapter used to present during the good and not-so-good old days, and set off to tell us “how it was then” and “what we wish to pass on to you”, as symbolized by the baton-passing watermark background on each of the slides.

Why must there be a new society? Why IMAM? What’s the need for it? Malaysian Muslim medic students and practitioners in the UK and Eire had survived for decades, what difference will IMAM bring?

It was amidst those skepticism that Dr Amal and his trusty wife paved the way for a “common platform in which the significance of Islamic fiqh in medicine is understood and applied, a network to share and enhance each others’ experience”. PPIM (Persatuan Perubatan Islam Malaysia) - has had a strong base in Malaysia. Counting on experience from managing the student chapter in Malaysia, Dr Amal garnered support and confidence from a number of medical students who later consisted the first ever overseas IMAM Student Chapter in Eire. UK medics followed later, and soon afterwards Student Chapters sprouted in various other countries - Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, Czech.

Slowly, through sheer hard work and determination, they started to organize big things and gain recognition. It was not easy, especially when numbers were small and skepticism was awash. Come to think of it, people would be more convinced of their righteousness, would be more optimistic in their undertakings, when their number is large and everyone is cheering and applauding, right? People like to equate strength with virtue, power with truth. Well, even in the Prophet S.A.W.’s time, only after Fathul Makkah did people embrace Islam in droves!

Relief missions, conferences and pre-departure camps are among the trademark IMAM UK-Eire SC programs. Ministers, diplomats, and high-ranking officials from Malaysia paid their attention, even asking to be invited, as was the case of Dato’ Najib and his ensemble of bigshots during the 2005 IMAM Symposium in Manchester. We went to Acheh and Cambodia. We organized and participated (as the ones who did the procedure, not undergoing it!) in Sunathons (mass circumcision) in Malaysia’s rural areas.

For the Malaysian medical practitioners based in the UK-Eire who found it difficult to return and serve at home - registering in Malaysia would, in most circumstances, require them to undergo housemanship all over again, how inconvenient when they’ve already achieved statures as MOs and Registrars and whatnots here - IMAM helped to smoothen the transition, allowing them to obtain places and due positions without much bureaucracy. Of course, it’s the Doctor’s Chapter that was largely involved in this.

Those were the good old days. I don’t know. Maybe it’s so much easier to glorify the past and see the present as gloomy - because one doesn’t know that much things of the past, while one knows almost every single faults and deficiencies of the present. Maybe it’s a true difference. The committee in the past did work much harder than we are currently doing, although they didn’t have any glorious history to inspire them. The members in the past did have a much stronger sense of belonging towards IMAM than they do now. Well, it’s not a reason to grieve, of course! If anything, the comparison should only goad us to work harder, to sacrifice more, and to keep faith, for IMAM! Dr Amal has already suggested that we do roadshows as they used to do before, to re-promote IMAM all over the country. Insya-Allah. We will.

“IMAM provides the initiative and encouragement for medics to serve humanity throughout their career, till the end of their lives.” It is not an over-statement or an unrealistic idealism. From the beginning of our medical education, students ought to be given awareness and opportunities to serve. Dr Amal mentioned with contempt about doctors who amassed so much wealth - the collective properties of private-sector medical practitioners in Malaysia amounts to RM 300 mil, the highest among all professionals - only for personal enjoyments, only to end up as couch potatoes waiting for death after they felt old enough (and rich enough) to cease service. The ideal to be achieved is, the older one is, the harder one works for humanity’s sake. There is no brakes but death, hence the saying, “Let’s dash the final 100 metres to Jannah!”

As Dr Amal said, verifiably, medics have the greatest access to humanity, to be utilized with the ultimate objective of da’wah. We can enter people’s lives in the most intimate manner, our very presence command respect and our words are placed on pedestals. With all due respect to their faith and efforts, Christians have used humanitarian movements - which include medical aids - as extremely useful tools of missionary work. It’s high time Muslims enter the field, such as what IslamicRelief, MuslimAid, InterPal, MERCY Malaysia and IMAM is doing.

That’s the baton to be passed. IMAM’s noble ideals, to be internalized by all Muslim medical students and manifested in our practices. To serve humanity, for da’wah.

On the actual topic for the day, Medicine in Malaysia : Past, Present, Future; Dr Amal lamented on the shortcomings still haunting the healthcare system in our dear motherland. Doctors in government practices are overworked, while doctors in the private practices seem to be very busy collecting money. Free healthcare is still incomplete. A lot of the poors in rural areas are suffering from lack of medical awareness and access.

“Less than 6% of Malaysia’s GDP is allotted for healthcare, while the WHO standard is 12%.”

We were silent, contemplating.

“Where does all the money go? It’s not that we don’t have money. The problem is not with resources, but with justice. Financing for projects that can benefit the people is severely cut down to give allowance for certain individuals to savour what is never rightfully theirs.”

Indeed, medicine, politics, and policy-making is but intertwined!

“The doctors are also pursuing money. They are not where they are needed the most - villages, rural areas, disaster-torn areas in the world - but where their material wants would be satisfied the most.”

Although the audience was less than 20, although I had to travel for almost eight hours overall just for a less than three-hours session, I was inspired. We were all inspired, to do our best to continue and uphold the legacy of IMAM, to do da’wah, and to join the rest of the defenders of humanity. InsyaAllah.

meow~