The Personal Side of Ahmad Ibrahim

By Mohamed Sidek Ahmad

(Paper presented at a two-day seminar honoring the late legal giant Ahmad Ibrahim, sponsored by the Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM) held on August 21-22 at Kuala Lumpur: “Ahmad Ibrahim : Pemikiran Dan Sumbangan Ilmiah” (Ahmad Ibrahim: His Thoughts and Academic Contributions)

(Posted with kind permission of the author and IKIM)

(First of Two Parts: The second part will be posted next Tuesday)

[Note: Beginning today and on subsequent Tuesdays, I will be posting papers presented at the above seminar. The late Ahmad Ibrahim was truly a towering figure in Malaysia and Singapore. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the authors and to Wan Azhar of IKIM for permission to post these papers. IKIM will be publishing the entire proceedings in a book due out early 2008. MBM]

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of my family to thank IKIM (Institut Kafahaman Islam Malaysia) for remembering my late father, Allahyarham Ahmad Ibrahim, and for organizing this grand seminar.

I stand here before you today not so much to laud his achievements and contributions – though they have been many – but to share with you a glimpse of the personal side and nature of the man behind that public persona. After all, as his son, it is this side of him that I know best.

Born in Singapore but living his later years in Malaysia, Ahmad Ibrahim was a man of two worlds. He loved and valued both. However, it is indeed strange that when I read the accolades given to the late Tan Sri, I find that most of them relate to the contributions and achievements he made during his life in Malaysia. Perhaps not many realize that he actually started living in Malaysia only after he retired from the civil service in Singapore. Thus all his Malaysian achievements were after his “official” retirement.

He certainly never forgot his roots. In the days before his death, it was as if he sought to feel again his beginnings. A month before his death, he paid a visit to Singapore, and on a Thursday evening he made his way to Masjid Baalwi, the famous mosque in Singapore that is also the mosque he attended often when living in Singapore. As usual on Thursday evenings, there was a rhatib at the mosque. Immediately upon reaching the mosque, many recognized him, and they treated him as a guest of honor. After the rathib everyone came and shook his hands, proud to have a distinguished son of Singapore present at the mosque.

The same thing happened the next day when he went for Friday prayers at the Masjid Sultan. Many greeted him and shook his hands. Little did anyone, both at the Masjid Baalwi and Masjid Sultan, know that it would be the last time they were to see him. That was Allahyarham’s last trip to Singapore, and we now realized that it was actually his farewell trip to the land of his birth.

We were all not prepared for his death, for although he was 83, he still worked hard every day, harder than someone half his age. He was extremely fit; during Ramadan he always prayed 20 rakaats Tarawih and 3 witr every evening in the mosque. He continued this right until his last Ramadan.

He hardly was ever sick, and even on the day of his death he was not suffering from any lingering illness. He had gone to work as usual on that day and it was only after he returned home from work did he say he was not feeling well and that he wanted to see everyone in the family. It was as if he had a premonition of what was to come, just like when he made that last trip to Singapore.

Family members living in Kuala Lumpur arrived within a short time while those in Singapore began their journey. While my brothers were driving up from Singapore they were delayed for some reason or other, and they phoned my father to tell him they would be arriving only at about 11.00PM. I can still remember my father’s words on hearing this news: “I will wait for you!”

And he did! When the last stragglers finally came in at 11.00PM, my father was so happy to see us all together. He kept looking at everyone’s face and said he was sorry to have inconvenienced us by asking us to come to the house.

The end came not long after. He went back to bed, telling us to do the same. At 2.00AM that night, my mother gathered all of us together and said my father was not well. My father had told her that his time was up and that he was dying.

At about 2.30AM, 17 April 1999, on the first day of Muharram, my father hijrahed to the next world. He died peacefully.

His death was front-page news both in Malaysia and Singapore. The newspapers paid tribute to him for his contributions in legal and academic fields of both countries.

Very Private Person

My father was indeed unique as he was an expert in both English and Islamic laws. This characteristic of his in having the best of both worlds was also manifested in other aspects of his life. He wore a coat and tie, and topped this off with a songkok. He also loved both eastern and western cuisine.

For all his fame, Ahmad Ibrahim was a very private person who did not seek publicity; in fact he shunned it. He very rarely gave press interviews.

He had always kept his professional life separate from his personal. This separation was strictly enforced. In public he rarely talked about his family, to the extent that it gave rise to speculations and rumors surrounding his personal life. There were questions whether he had a wife and family, or even whether he had multiple wives. Well, let me put it on record here that Ahmad Ibrahim had ten children, and all of them from one wife!

At home what was immediately clear about him was that he was a man of very high personal discipline, a trait he picked up from his equally disciplined medical doctor father, Dr Ibrahim Sheikh Ismail. If at work people remembered him for his punctuality and his strict sense of time, it was the same at home. Breakfast was precisely at 7.00AM, lunch at 1.00PM, and dinner at 8.00PM. All in the family knew this and we had to be at the table on time for these meals. He went to bed and got up at the same time every day, as far as I can remember.

Meals were always eaten together at one large table. This never changed, even after most of us were married and had our own children. When we visited him at meal times, we all ate together, with extra chairs and tables added if necessary. Those moments are etched in our memory. Meal times were also for family discussions. It was an opportunity for all to say their piece. Topics discussed at the dinner table were varied, from politics to sports and from moral issues to television programs. Though Allahyarham appeared to contribute little to the conversations, he always listened and laughed at the jokes we made. When he did speak, it was usually very short and to the point. Very effective!

He loved to read, and we always had a library wherever we lived. He had always been a bookworm, with a book never far away from his hands. The house was always filled with books. On his death, we brought back about 300 boxes of books from his office in UIA [University Islam Antarabangsa]. These and the books that were in the house were later donated to the UIA.

His respect for books was very great; even old and torn books were kept and not thrown away. He loved buying books. Every time he went on an overseas trip he would bring back books. He always kept abreast with the latest books and articles on law. Once I bought him a book for his birthday, which I thought was the latest, only to be told that he had already read it.

When it came to books he seemed to have a photographic memory in that he knew where exactly to look for a book in the library and which page of the book to refer to.

Next: Contributions to Malaysia and Singapore