They said that a measure of a man’s contribution to the world is judged by the number of lives he touched before his demise. This is certainly true when we look at the life of AlMarhum Dato Ir Dr Azhari Mohamed Salleh (DAMS) whose eventfull life came to an abrupt end when the angels came and took his soul in the early hours of this morning on the 15th of July or 5th of Zulhijjah 1442H. I was asked to write an eulogy of this man which I undertake somewhat reluctantly because I cannot claim to know everything that he has done and so may be unable to do full justice, but since I am one of those who seem to be in orbit around him for a very long time, the best I can do is try.Almarhum DAMS was born in Sungai Petani a true blue Kedahan and his Kedah slang which was very “pekat” stayed with him throughout his life. “Apa khabaq?” was his standard greeting to every one he met. “Sihat kaa?” The usual follow up. A smile was always perpetually playing on his lips though on the rare occasion he can also be driven to anger. Soft spoken, easy going but very sharp and very carefull with his words, he was the consummate leader. He exuded confidence and naturally he was always the first person in his colleagues minds when they wanted someone to lead in any initiative.
He was educated in Kedah but also studied at Technical Institute (TI) Penang. As fate would have it, I was studying for my MCE when he was at TI. Whilst others went overseas straight after MCE (As SPM was known then) he went to the Technical College (TC) in Jalan Gurney KL and enrolled in a diploma course in mechanical engineering in the early 1970s. Those period in TC was the formative years of his involvement in students activism. The university campuses then were restive places for students activists with Anwar Ibrahim, Ibrahim Ali, Hishamuddin Rais, (TanSri) Sanusi Junid and the rest formenting students activism in national issues like poverty etc. At the same time it was also the beginnings of the Islamic Awakening again mainly student led and campus based. Angkatan Belia Islam or ABIM was setup in 1971, later led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and was enthusiastically received by an ideologically starved youth. In TC ( later renamed Institute Technology Kebangsaan or ITK ) one of the key prime movers of this dakwah trend was Indonesian AlMarhum Pak Imaduddin Abdul Rahim (Pak Imad), founder of ICMI, an ITB dosen (lecturer) who was recruited by the then rector of ITK AlMarhum Tan Sri Ainuddin Abdul Wahid (who later become the first vice chancellor of UTM when it was upgraded to the status of a fully fledged university in 1975). Whilst studying in ITK, DAMS was active in dakwah activities being involved in the LKD (Latihan Kader Dakwah) under Pak Imad. In this respect, he can be categorised amongst the Assabiqun Wal Awallun or early adherents to the dakwah movement amongst the campus inhabitants which later spread to the wider community. At the same time, Sanusi Junid then a banking manager put forward a visionary economic plan to improve the Malay Muslim economic situation by setting up a cooperative called SHAMELIN in which Malays were encouraged to join with the capital being used to involve in economic activities. This grandiose plan captured the imagination of the early students in ITK and DAMS was one of the proponents of this scheme. I remember him promoting this idea when I first met him in the UK. Like all grandiose plans in those early days, Shamelin rose like a meteor and later crashed like one but that is another story. With this background, DAMS left ITK upon graduation in 1973 and went to the UK to obtain his Bachelor Degree at first with Brighton Poytechnic and later he moved on to Portsmouth Polytechnic.Our paths first crossed in September 1974 when he was in Brighton and I was just a newcomer fresh from Malaysia together with 72 other students at Brighton Technical College. We all studied for an Ordinary National Diploma or OND. All of us stayed at “digs” i.e. with foster English families. Access to halal food was incredibly difficult then and the only way of getting halal food was if you get invited to supper at the seniors houses. Once you entered second year of the Diploma course you are considered a senior and can live on your own or with friends. DAMS lived with a few fellow ex ITK colleagues at a house they called Teratak Damai. He used to bring us to their accommodation using his own car and to be able to eat halal food cooked Malaysian style was indeed a rare luxury which none of us could afford to forego. Before and after eating, they would casually remind us of our religious obligations, distribute prayer times, leaflets about Islam etc without being too evangelical about it so we did not feel pressured or overly obliged. Dakwah at its best. His fatherly approach and sense of humour led many of us to appreciate him and respect him as an elder brother. In the early 70s, the UK was a hotbed of Islamic Activism and the Malaysians were not exempted from this trend. In London there was the Malaysian Islamic Study Group (MISG) with strong ABIM leanings and other students from outside the capital including Brighton, Portsmouth, Loughborough and Liverpool. All were keen to play a part in the dakwah movement in Malaysia.
Many meetings were held to somehow coordinate and streamline both the activities and education of the students throughout the UK and Ireland and when these activitists returned to Malaysia. This led to the formation of the Islamic Representative Council in the autumn of 1975 in which DAMS also played a major role.In 1976 I left to study in Liverpool and I did not see him after that. Our paths crossed again when I graduated in 1979 and joined UTM which at that time was based in the Kuala Lumpur campus. He had joined UTM before me. He stayed in Gombak in Taman Greenwood in a small group of cheap wooden houses for rent we nicknamed Kampung Maududi in honour of Sued Abul Ala Al Maududi, the founder of Jamaati Islami in Pakistan who at that time was one of the icons of the nascent Islamic students movement in the UK. DAMS was very active in the local Islamic activities around Taman Greenwood as well as in the UTM campus which under Tan Sri Ainuddin encouraged the Malay students to adhere to Islam besides studying and working very hard to succeed in their studies and careers. DAMS was very close to Tan Sri Ainuddin Abdul Wahid perhaps because they shared a common cause- Islam and need to better the economic status of the Muslim Ummah. He was one of the few engineering lecturers chosen to deliver the Friday Khutbah at the UTM Mosque which was unheard of in campuses elsewhere. Tan Sri was a great man and pioneer himself and he wanted people like DAMS to help UTM achieve its raison detre of “Kerana Tuhan untuk Manusia”. The UTM mosque was nearest available mosque in the nearby areas at that time, and attracted many worshippers from Felda, Police and Army and therefore the khutbah message was generally meant for everyone not just the students. Topics and contents were generally unregulated with few guidelines unlike nowadays hence the khatibs were free to talk about the issues of the day. DAMS took full advantage of this to deliver what he felt were issues important to the ummah and Muslim Malays.In 1982 he left to do his Masters in Cranfield Institute of Technology. In 1983 I followed suit to Cranfield. Abang AZ as he was popularly known then was considered the informal leader of the small group of Malaysian Students studying there. Together with Datin Zainab (or Kak Nab as she was known then) they were the acknowledged head of the small community. I remember whenever one of the ladies gave birth, Kak Nab organised the ladies to cook , clean and do tasks for the family in question until things returned to normal. He would organise activities such as the quran study circles, kenduri or baca yasin sessions. Again he managed to earn the respect of the Malaysian students there. He was also active in dakwah activities involving Malaysian Students activities in the UK then. As one of the few brothers who was in their early thirties then, he was easily amongst the oldest Malaysian students then and people looked up to him for leadership.
As a Dai (or caller to Islam), DAMS is not known for his ideological eloquence. He was not as erudite ie did not expouse the theoretical aspects of Islam and the calling towards it as good as some of his contemporaries. He strength was in his emphasis on the humanistic, societal obligations, adab and caring aspects of Islam that a Muslim must practice with his fellow Muslims or non-Muslims. He believed that Muslims must behave towards and treat each other in an exemplary manner. I believed that this aspect was dear to him and he tried to live his life (and that of his family) in a similar vein. Thus people who know and interacted with him had a closeness and familiarity that embodied the Islamic brotherhood.I remember that whenever he was asked to give an impromptu speech (and that was often), he would refer to a hadith from Abu Hurairah Radhiallah anhu in which the prophet mentioned that “ there are 7 categories of people who on the day of judgement will get shade from Allah swt on the day where there is no shade except by His command. Amongst them is the category of people who mutually love each other solely for the sake of Allah and depart for His sake.”He would quote this hadith to stress on the importance of brotherhood based on sincerity and for the sole purpose of getting His pleasure. I think and many who know him, can testify that he tried his level best to embody this principle in his daily life whether at home, amongst friends or at work.With that in mind one of the most memorable and helpful things he initiated once he returned to Malaysia in 1983 was to set up a business somewhere in 1985. This was to set up a company to sell second hand cars to help those who at that time did not have an Islamic alternative to avoid engaging in riba. Most of us in those days eschewed riba practices and wanted to live a life free of riba. Our salaries in the 80s were also unfortunately very low. For example my salary upon getting my Masters after working for 5 years since joining UTM came to a sumptuous total of RM 1480 a month, a princely sum in those days but hardly able to buy a second hand car for cash what more purchase a brand new car. He set up a company called SPAZ and enabled may people including me to purchase a second hand car for the first time in my life without taking the government loan that carried a 4 % interest rate. We paid a fixed sum every month until it was settled.
Although most of us were prompt in settling our debts to him, some weren’t so and this frequently caused him problems which he used to share with me. In the end, the company was wound up once Syariant compliant schemes were introduced by Bank Islam and the rest of the banks.DAMS despite his academic duties and business, did not falter in his social and community obligations especially in dakwah. He was busy in community service both in UTM and outside, was involved in JIM and later one of the founding members of IKRAM and also a member of the Board of Trustees of Hidayah Dakwah Foundation- an NGO for Islamic Outreach activities. He stayed in Taman Greenwood all the while and involved himself in the local mosque activities and held a number of posts there. Whilst at UTM KL he was also head of the UTM Mosque committee that collected donations to build the new mosque. Before it was just a wooden structure that expanded over the years and was very hot and stuffy. After the transformation of the campus beginning in 2010, the present mosque rightfully assumes centerpiece as a modern, beautifully designed place for worship fit for the 21st century.In 1992 when Business Advanced and Technology Centre (BATC) was set up in 1992 as a G2G initiative between the British and Malaysian government specifically involving UTM and Warwick University, he was seconded to BATC KL and after sometime there, left to pursue his doctorate studies in Loughborough in 1993 where I happened to be completing my PhD there. So this time I was the senior and he was my junior. Our relationship continued until I returned in 1994. There were many Malaysian families who happened to be studying in Loughborough during those times and he and his better half played a major role as a moderating influence there. He was also involved in Dakwah activities in the UK under the platform of Majlis Syura Muslimun (MSM).Upon returning to Malaysia, he went over to the Kolej Angkatan Tentera in Sungai Besi , the precursor to Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) and served there for a few years. This Kolej was a joint initiative involving the Ministry of Defence and UTM and several UTM programmes were run there.Once UPNM was officially launched, UTM staff attached there were given a choice to stay or return to UTM. He chose to leave UPNM and rejoined BATC and was appointed BATC Director for about 6 months in 2010 before taking over as Pengarah of Kolej Science and Technology(KST) Diploma programe as Director of KST. As the transformation of the KL campus was gathering pace and the university authorities then felt that he could provide the leadership to help KST bridge the transformation gap. He retired from UTM in 2013 if my memory serves me correctly.
After his retirement, he continued his community involvement, mosque appointments in Gombak and ran a homestay in Hulu Langat until the time of his death. In a sense, DAMS is a good example of a servant leader. He was a man who spent a great deal of his life in the service of others. He did not seek leadership but leadership was entrusted to him by people who were impressed by his easy going style, his friendly disposition and his willingness to sacrifice his time, efforts and money to help others for the sake of Allah swt. He was awarded a Datukship in 2009 by the Sultan of Kedah but that did not corrupt the humble kampung boy from Sungai Petani. As the saying goes “You can take the boy from the kampung but you cannot take the kampung from the boy”.DAMS is no longer with us today. He has passed on to the Alam Barzah- the transitory phase between death and resurrection. All that remains are memories of the deeds he did and left behind.From the myriads of tributes that have flooded in the social media following his demise, one can say that despite his failings, it was his numerous contributions and good deeds that people will remember. As someone who was in touch with him over the best part of 50 years, I can testify that he was a committed Muslim who wanted to make a difference wherever he went and lived. Many people’s lives were touched by what he and his family did which is a testimony to how he lived his life. May Allah swt forgive him all his sins and admit him into AlJannah without Hisab. May Allah light up his grave with Nur, widen it and make it into one of the gardens of Paradise. May we, those who are left behind but will surely follow, remember him for his deeds and aspire to emulate the good qualities he embodied in this temporal life. ameen.عظم الله أجركم وأحسن عزاءكم وغفر الله لميتكم وأسكنه الله فسيح الجنان مع الشهداء والصديقين وجعل قبره روضة من رياض الجنة، وإنا لله وإنا اليه راجعون.May Allah Taala magnify your reward and your best consolation, and may Allah Taala forgive the one who has died, and may Allah Taala place him in the vastness of heaven with the martyrs and the siddiqin, and make his grave one of the gardens from the gardens of Paradise, and verily we belong to Allah Taala and to Him we shall return.
By: Prof Awaluddin M Shaharoun.
Share The Messages, Empower The Reverts
