Ahmad Murad Merican

Ahmad Murad Merican is currently a professor at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation, International Islamic University Malaysia. Prior, he was at the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies (CenPRIS), Universiti Sains Malaysia. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage (ASWARA). He taught various aspects of journalism and the social sciences for three decades. He also founded the Institute of Journalism Studies at a public university in the Klang Valley. His other books include one on media history and the other on the history of journalism and communication study in Malaysia. His first book on journalism is titled The Journalist as Storyteller: Essays on the Scribe and His Times (2001). His other interest is in national, local history and historiography, reflected in the publication of Batu Uban: Sejarah Awal Pulau Pinang (2015). A columnist for the New Sunday Times, he also contributes to several other periodicals. Ahmad Murad was a journalist with BERNAMA, the national news agency in the early 1980s.

He writes for the national opinion media, commenting on culture, history and society. His earliest published essay was for the Penang Free School Form Four magazine titled D’Flop (1973), and later saw another essay published in the national media in Form Six. It was the Penang-based daily The Straits Echo. After some 20 years of “hibernating”, he revived his interest in painting, participating in a few group art exhibitions over the last few years. He also delves into songwriting and poetry. A descendant of some of the oldest families in Pulau Pinang, Prof Ahmad Murad was born in Tanjong and now lives by the cool unpolluted foothills of the Banjaran Titiwangsa in Tanjong Malim, Perak.