Empowering hearts and minds: a transformative experience for a new IIUM international staff member at AHAS KIRKHS I’badah Camp 2024

• Main Author: Ahmed Mohsen, Hamoud Yahya
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Department of Communication, KIRKHS, IIUM 2024
• Subjects: AS Academies and learned societies (General)
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/114697/1/114697_Empowering%20hearts%20and%20minds.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/114697/; https://news.iium.edu.my/?p=180266

As a new academic staff who joined AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (AHAS KIRKHS) at the IIUM just two months ago, my participation in AHAS KIRKHS I’badah Camp 2024 was both unique and profoundly empowering, offering a transformative experience. Not only did the camp serve as a warm welcome to me into such an enlightening spiritual and academic environment of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) but it also provided me with an invaluable opportunity to reflect deeply on the integration of faith and scholarship as a core value at AHAS KIRKHS. As a simple scholar with over twenty years of academic experience in English literature at the university level, both in Yemen and Malaysia, my expectation of the AHAS KIRKHS I’badah Camp 2024 was shaded by a mixture of excitement and curiosity. The night before the camp, I found myself restless and contemplative, wondering whether this experience would mirror the usual team-building exercises and activities I had used to or offer something truly transformative.