A Malay genius pay tribute to a past Malay genius

Still plain lazy to write after being away for more than two weeks.

To keep this blog up-dated, we like to share this You Tube link sent to us from Mus, an old friend that we met more than 30 years ago at his home in Long Island, New York.

He was excited to introduce Dr Afifi Al Akiti, a student of the pondok from Perak that went on to study in several countries under many great teachers and finally landed lecturing at Oxford.

Although not widely known in Malaysia, Dr Afifi made significant achievement at his young age. Perakian Mus was proud to highlight Dr Afifi as an example to dispel the stereotype labeling of "Melayu bodoh."

In the video, the young genius paid tribute to another Malay from the past he described as genius but was not sufficiently appreciated in Malaysia.

Our friend Mus wrote:

This is a tazkirah delivered by Dr. Afifi Al-Akiti at the 2013 Nasheed Extravaganza organised by the Malaysian Students at the University of Sheffield.

Dr. Afifi is the first Malay to hold a chair at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford.

In his tazkirah, he talks about the geniusness of Allahyarham P.Ramlee in his creative works, and he attributes it to the ability of Allahyarham P.Ramlee to draw from all traditions with compromising, or even abandoning, his Islamic tradition:

The video below:

Read Wikipedia here to know more of this truly illustrious young man.

Dr Afifi illustrated a simple example that highlights a bad tendency of Melayu in power and authority to underestimate and downgrade other Melayu. They would rather appreciate and revere foreigners and non-Melayu.

Seldom do they realise that the ability, knowledge and experience in solutions to solve problems and ideas and visions to build nation and civilisation already exist within us.

Usually they lack appreciation for history and intellectualism. Such attitude is most prevalent amongst business and corporate men, yet they are given so much responsiblity and role by and in government.