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40 41 38 th IIUM Convocation 2022 38 th IIUM Convocation 2022 organisation, such as Allahyarham Dr Mohd Yusnan Yusuf (KOED), Allahyarham Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adnan Abdul Rashid (KOED), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arifin Mamat (KOED), and currently, Prof. Dr. Majdi Hj. Ibrahim (AHAS IRKHS). Presently, ICESCO and IIUM are engaged in the following collaborations: • Establishing academic chairs at the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge, Chair of Writing Islamic Nations’ Languages with Qur’anic Letters and at the Kulliyyah of Engineering, Chair of Sustainable Engineering. • Providing research funds and grants for young IIUM researchers to conduct scientific research in nanotechnology, health biotechnology, information and communication technologies, agricultural biotechnology, engineering sciences, biological sciences, frontier areas of science and technology, medicinal plants and applied sciences. • Conducting joint conferences with IIUM kulliyyahs, such as the 7th IIUM International Conference on “Criticism and Innovation in Linguistics and Literary Works (2020),” with the KIRKHS. • Inviting IIUM staff to participate in ICESCO’s conferences. • Appointing IIUM experts to conduct trainings and workshops. • Appointing IIUM experts to evaluate research works and grant applications. ICESCO has been and will continue to be a champion of education specially to empower Muslim females with multifaceted knowledge and abilities in various fields of education, science and technology, culture and communication. During COVID-19, ICESCO played a fundamental role in ensuring the education of Muslims worldwide was not disrupted by the pandemic. A central platform called the “ICESCO Digital Home” was launched which contains several digital initiatives to benefit Muslim learners worldwide. One of the initiatives is “ICESCO Educational Lectures: Distance learning in the time of COVID-19” which aims to strengthen the role of distance learning and the use of digital resources and services to ensure the continuity of education for Muslims, no matter where they are. ICESCO has also elevated the status of Arabic as the language of religion and scholarship by setting up an educational centre in Malaysia in 2015 specialising in the teaching of the language. The centre specialises in teaching Arabic to non-Arabic speakers and strives to build the national educational capacities in Malaysia and Southeast Asian countries. In addition, it collaborates with the Ministry of Education to provide numerous educational training programmes in the teaching of Arabic, both in Malaysia and neighbouring countries. The efforts of ICESCO are harmonious with the vision and mission of KOED which is to build the capacities of Muslim educators, scholars and researchers through meaningful knowledge construction, skills development and state-of-the-art technology utilisation. KOED strives to inculcate the understanding of education as a form of Rahmatan lil A’lamin among its staff and students. This reflects the role that ICESCO has sustained over the years. The conferment of the award is timely, given the ICESCO’s contributions to the world, the Muslim Ummah and IIUM. It is hoped that the conferment of the award will foster closer ties between the three parties, ICESCO, IIUM and KOED.