It's always not easy to run a society where there are many people with different opinions, backgrounds and needs. For the pass few weeks, I have been involved in setting-up a society in my faculty. This is due to the lack of sense of community in the faculty among the research students. This becomes a concern of one of the Professors in my faculty who has been trying to build a stronger research community in the faculty since 2001 but failed. He really wants to see all the research students in the faculty actively talking and discussing about research. Through a few meetings, we came to a decision to set up a society to meet that aim. We proposed an association called Faculty of Education Students' Association or FESA and held the first meeting last Wednesday. The turn-up was ok but everyone came with different idea of this society. Many think that this society is to cater the welfare of students hence want to make it as inclusive as possible, while some think that this should be an exclusive society and only PhD or MPhil student should be the chair. When we brought the minute of the meeting to the Professor, he wasn't quite happy about it because he wasn't aiming to take care of the welfare of the students unless it has to do with the research.
Having no support from him unless we change our direction to only cater research students in the faculty, we resorted to change the name of the society to Faculty of Education Research Students' Association or FERSA. Now, many people want to run for the chair (not me though, no time for this), so most of the work now is given to the Higher Degree Officer. Phew, a bit relief. So, we'll see what is going to happen next.
The next society is ISOC. Yesterday, we have an OGM just to ratify 7 amendments of the ISOC members due to the worry of the Sunni that guideline which goes along with the constitution. Wow, it took more than 2 hours just to make everyone happy with the corrections. Why? As I said in the beginning, it's not easy to fulfill the needs of everyone, the most prominent issue here is between the Sunni and Shiah. This is not to say that Sunni and Shiah in Cambridge ISOC have any serious crisis, it is in fact among the best model in many ISOC in UK that Cambridge doesn't have separate society for Shiah like many other universities in UK. ISOC here tries to accept as many Muslim members as possible despite the belief, level of practice and view. Recently, there is a tension between the Sunni and Shiah due to the worry among the Sunni that the Shiah's teaching of the belief in infallible imams will 'poison' the Sunni members who do not have much knowledge about this. ALLAHU'alam. It was a hot debate but not many were transparent enough to open up the issue that lies behind the whole evening.
Anyway, alhamdulillah it's through and I pray that we can all be united in just one name of ALLAH, in one qiblah, in one same prayer and Prophet. It is not right to divide people but who are we to say who is right and who is wrong?
"And hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude Allah's favour on you; for ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that by His Grace, ye became brethren; and ye were on the brink of the pit of Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus doth Allah make His Signs clear to you: That ye may be guided."~ The Holy Qur'an: Surah Ali Imran (Chapter 3: The Family of Imran): verse 103
ALLAHU'alam.
Wassalam.
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