Saturday, January 30, 2016

Farewell and Rest in Peace, Prof. Twareque Ali

I was told that the flight KL810 that is bringing Prof. Twareque's body home (via Amsterdam) has just flown a few minutes ago. My prayers to him and a safe journey home back to his family.

There is a sense of relief but also a sense of guilt much in the same way that I felt way back in 13 July 2009 when my mum passed away. At the time, I had just sent back my brother Dzafa to Kuala Lumpur since I was about to leave for the conference QTS6 on July 18 and I will not be at home. I felt guilty in a way that he was not able to spend the final moments with my mum as if I had robbed him those precious moments. In the same way, I felt that by inviting Prof. Twareque here for EQuaLS8, I have robbed him the final moments that he could have been with his family. Despite as a muslim, we believe that this is fate as willed by God, still felt the same guilt and wished to be forgiven.

It was on Monday that Prof. Twareque Ali passed away and from the post-mortem it is now confirmed that it was due to a heart attack. The process to get the body released from the hospital was quite involved in a way that I did not imagine. The presence of his brother Syed Haroon Ali and his wife from Singapore later has actually helped to speed up matters and we are thankful for that. On our part, we tried to facilitate as much as we could and I must thank my staff in helping out particularly Mr. Firdaus. We also thank the police and hospital staff that had helped smoothen the process. The body finally had its ritual final cleansing on Thursday night. The funeral prayers was conducted at the UPM mosque after Friday prayers. A certain amount of relief is that we could participate directly in these prayers. There was a good crowd at the funeral prayers, together with the director, his brother and many students and staff of the institute. We hope that our prayers will help him in the next world and may Allah grant His Mercy.

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