Jakarta, Indonesia - I received a notice from Dato Seri Dr. Anwar Ibrahim inviting me to be a speaker at the "International Integrity Conference 2010" organized by the Instititute of Integrity Penang, in Penang, Malaysia, on August 7. It was a good panel discussion on "Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz: Reinventing the Future Through Good Governance," with Prof. Dr. Shaikh Abdullah Hassan Maidin, USM, Penang; Dr. Humayon Dar, BMB Islamic London; and Prof. Dr. Abdul Latif Abdul Razak, ISTAC/IIUM. It was an interactive discussion.
In the second panel there were YBM Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim, founder of the International Institute of Public Ethics and former Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Establishment of the Ethics Office; an expert on Public Ethics from the University of Science of Malaysia, Prof. Dr. Lim Hong Hai; and Mr. Suresh, a CEO of INTEL Communication.
It was propossed during the conference to establish "Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz Integrity Indicator."
I was invited to deliver a public lecture on August 21 in Yogyakarta on the occassion of the new academic year by the Faculty of Philosophy of the Gadjah Mada University, the oldest university in Indonesia.
Note: Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz was the celebrated Umayyad caliph whose empire stretched from the shores of the Atlantic to the highlands of Pamir. He ruled from 717 to 720 CE. Umar was extremely pious and disdainful of worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity to the extravagance that had become a hallmark of the Umayyad lifestyle. Though he had the people's overwhelming support, he publicly encouraged them to elect someone else if they were not satisfied with him (an offer no one ever took him up on). He made it a personal goal to attend to the needs of every person in his empire. Fearful of being tempted into bribery, he rarely accepted gifts, and when he did; he promptly deposited them in the public treasury. He is widely known for reinforcing the Zakat (giving a percentage of one's wealth to charity), and according to Muslim tradition, at the end of his rule, there were scarcely any poor people to give the charity money to.