Rahmah Ahmad H.Osman

eHalal4All Program—Promoting Halal Rural Products and Services Globally by Harnessing the Network-of-Mosques (NoM) Capabilities

The population of Muslims globally is estimated to be more than 1.6 billion. The recent religious awakening of Muslims and their realization of the importance of compliance with Shari’ah laws in business dealings have enabled them to achieve their economic and well-being goals. This conceptual paper proposes eHalal4All Program, which is proposed to be adopted as one of the 1AZAM Malaysian government-sponsored programs and implemented as a proof-of-concept in raising the economic and social status of rural communities in Sabah, Malaysia. This program has the potential to enhance well-being by providing these rural communities with new skills, machinery, eHalal4All Portal, network of entrepreneurs, and network-of-mosques (NoM) in generating new sources of income. This program is executed based on the deployment of the Quadruple Helix Model (QHM), namely the Government, Academia, Industry, and Citizen. Literature reviews and nine (9) blocks of Business Model Canvas (BMC) framework are used as methodology for this paper. As the extent of rural poverty in Malaysia is expected to be reduced and societal well-being to be enhanced through eHalal4All Program, an added benefit is the minimization of the rural–urban migration process, thus demonstrating the contribution of NoM in realizing partly the meaning of “Rahmatan li’l-Alamin”.

MyMukim2Cloud Collaborative System

This conceptual paper seeks to put forth a novel vision, namely the combined deployment of the Quadruple Helix Model (QHM) collaboration mooted by Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, a Whole-of-Government (WoG) concept of ICT implementation across the Malaysian government agencies mooted by Malaysia Administrative and Modernization Planning Unit (MAMPU) and the Network of Mosques (NoM). This will be accomplished through leveraging the advances in cloud computing and mobile applications in setting up a proposed conceptual MyMukim2Cloud Collaborative System. The QHM actors, namely the Government, Academia, Industry and Citizen need to collaborate and share resources in nurturing and addressing the needs of less privileged and less fortunate people holistically, rather than the current practice which is executed in silos, isolation or independently. This proposed collaborative inter-organizational system is to enable a WoG and consolidated approach for government agencies, NGOs, the private sector and individuals in building up a single and trusted national database based on three (3) focus groups of people proposed in this paper, namely the Orphanage, the Poor and the Disabled. This database, proposed to be co-owned and managed by government agencies such as Department of Social Welfare (DSW) and Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM), can be accessed, used and updated by all other authorized and relevant organizations and individuals in making a consolidated contribution in nurturing and developing these groups. Thus, this System shall eliminate unnecessary and duplication in data, efforts and investments made by the various organizations. The expected outcome of MyMukim2Cloud System will be an enhanced quality of life for the proposed focus groups through the execution of social entrepreneurship concept in healthcare, education and financial activities provided by the QHM collaborators.

A bird’s eye view on Muslim scholarship in Southeast Asia

In this study, we will take a look at the biographies and contributions of 10 prominent scholars who played significant roles in the development and progress of the societies in the Malay Archipelago as well as the dissemination and better understanding of Islamic teachings among the people at that time. We understand that there are more than 10 great scholars of Nusantara, however to include all of them or even half of them in our study, is definitely a heavy, time and energy-consuming task and hence, we have decided to limit the number of scholars to only 10. This is not to mean that these 10 scholars make up the list of the top 10 or best scholars of Nusantara. There is no ranking intended and the reasons that we have chosen them are more based on the availability of information, the significance of their contributions as well as their influence on the people.