Universiti Islam Malaysia

About Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM) is a private postgraduate-only university registered under the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996, with administrative offices in Petaling Jaya and an initial academic campus in Cyberjaya, Selangor. UIM was incorporated on 1 November 2013 under UIM Sdn. Bhd. and commenced academic operations in November 2014, positioning itself at launch as Malaysia’s first university dedicated exclusively to postgraduate studies. The institution is wholly owned by Lembaga Pemegang Amanah Kolej Islam Malaya (LAKIM) Bhd, a trust body that traces its lineage to the original Lembaga Bersekutu Pemegang Amanah Pengajian Tinggi Islam Malaysia.

The institutional self-presentation by Universiti Islam Malaysia is that the university is a direct continuation of Kolej Islam Malaya (KIM), also known as the Muslim College, which was opened on 8 April 1955 under the royal consent of the Council of Malay Rulers. KIM was the first tertiary institution established in the Federation of Malaya. The original campus was an endowed palace at Jalan Kampung Jawa, donated by DYMM Almarhum Tuanku Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah, who officiated the opening ceremony alongside several Malay Rulers, state dignitaries, the representative of the British Queen, muftis, and community leaders. The 1955 founding reflected the early-twentieth-century reformist movement led by Sheikh Tahir bin Jalaluddin and Syed Alwi bin Syed Sheikh al-Hadi, drawing on the work of the Egyptian scholars Sheikh Jamaluddin al-Afghani and Sheikh Muhammad Abduh.

UIM operates six faculties: the Faculty of Quranic and Sunnah Studies, the Faculty of Islamic Civilisation, the Faculty of Syariah and Law, the Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, the Faculty of Science and Technology, and the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences. The combined offering has run five Master’s programmes and five PhD programmes since launch, with the gravitational centre of academic activity sitting in Islamic studies, shariah and law, and Islamic finance and muamalat. UIM is registered on the Malaysian Qualifications Register under institution ID 790.

The institutional positioning is distinct within Malaysia’s Islamic higher education sector. Unlike International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), which are federal public universities with both undergraduate and postgraduate intakes, UIM is private and postgraduate-only. Unlike INCEIF University, which specialises narrowly in Islamic finance under Bank Negara Malaysia stewardship, UIM operates a broader six-faculty portfolio that spans Quranic and Sunnah studies, civilisational studies, shariah, economics and muamalat, science and technology, and education. The combination of postgraduate-only intake, private LAKIM ownership, and broad Islamic disciplinary coverage gives UIM a market position not duplicated by any other Malaysian institution.

Cyberjaya Campus and Petaling Jaya Office of Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia operates from two principal addresses. The administrative and corporate office sits at Bangunan Aisyah, Lot 287, Jalan 16/3, Seksyen 16, 46350 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, placing it within walking distance of Universiti Malaya in Pantai Dalam and within a short drive of the Federal Highway corridor between Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. The initial academic campus is in Cyberjaya, the federally master-planned multimedia corridor city in Sepang district, approximately 30 minutes by car from Kuala Lumpur city centre and 25 minutes from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

The Cyberjaya location places UIM within the dense Malaysian university cluster anchored by Multimedia University (MMU Cyberjaya), University of Cyberjaya, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia, and Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. The shared infrastructure across the Cyberjaya higher education precinct includes student housing, Cyberjaya Hospital, public transit feeder buses to KL Sentral via the ERL Putrajaya/Cyberjaya station, and a working professional population that supplies postgraduate part-time and executive intake.

UIM has indicated that a permanent campus is under development, but at present the academic and administrative footprint is split between the Petaling Jaya office and the Cyberjaya teaching site. The split-site operation reflects the early-stage build phase typical of newly-launched private universities and is consistent with the institution’s postgraduate-only operating model, which carries lower physical infrastructure requirements per student than an undergraduate-heavy institution running large lecture and laboratory cohorts.

For prospective students, the Petaling Jaya address is the practical first point of contact for admissions enquiries, document submission, and meetings with faculty deans. The Cyberjaya site hosts the bulk of the postgraduate teaching and research activity, including supervised research, seminars, and faculty-led workshops.

Postgraduate Programmes at Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia organises its academic offering across six faculties, each delivering Master’s and PhD programmes within its disciplinary remit. The portfolio has been deliberately concentrated on Islamic intellectual disciplines and the contemporary applied fields that connect those disciplines to the Malaysian economy.

The Faculty of Syariah and Law is the institutional anchor of UIM’s juristic programme set. The faculty runs Master’s and PhD programmes in shariah and Islamic law, covering classical fiqh, contemporary applications of shariah within the Malaysian dual-system jurisdiction, and the regulatory interface between shariah courts and civil courts under the Federal Constitution. The faculty’s positioning makes UIM a graduate-research home for shariah court practitioners, Islamic affairs department officers, and academic candidates working on Malaysian Islamic legal scholarship.

The Faculty of Economics and Muamalat delivers Master’s and PhD programmes in Islamic economics, Islamic finance, and muamalat (Islamic commercial transactions). The Malaysian Islamic finance industry, anchored by Bank Negara Malaysia’s twin-track regulatory regime, sustains a significant practitioner demand for advanced qualifications in shariah-compliant finance, takaful (Islamic insurance), sukuk structuring, and Islamic capital market operations. UIM’s Faculty of Economics and Muamalat operates in this market alongside INCEIF University (the Bank Negara-backed specialist), the Islamic finance pathways at IIUM, and the financial economics tracks at the public research universities.

The Faculty of Quranic and Sunnah Studies runs postgraduate programmes in Quranic studies, hadith sciences, and the methodologies (usul) of Islamic scriptural interpretation. This is the disciplinary core of classical Islamic scholarship and the area where UIM’s Kolej Islam Malaya heritage is most directly expressed.

The Faculty of Islamic Civilisation delivers Master’s and PhD programmes in Islamic civilisational studies, intellectual history, and comparative civilisations. The faculty’s research output focuses on the Malay-Islamic civilisational tradition and its relationship with the broader Islamic world.

The Faculty of Education and Social Sciences offers postgraduate programmes in Islamic education, educational leadership, and the social sciences as applied to Muslim societies. This faculty supplies the Malaysian Islamic education sector, including teacher training and educational management for the religious school system (sekolah agama) and the Islamic study departments within mainstream schools.

The Faculty of Science and Technology is the most recent disciplinary expansion of UIM’s faculty footprint and runs postgraduate programmes that connect Islamic intellectual frameworks to contemporary science and technology fields, including ethics-of-technology research, Islamic perspectives on bioethics, and applied science programmes within the faculty’s research interests.

UIM has reported that since its 2014 launch the institution has run five Master’s programmes and five PhD programmes, with the active programme list updated as new accreditations are granted by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency. Postgraduate applications run year-round rather than on a fixed semester intake, and the admissions office assigns supervisors based on faculty research alignment.

Fees at Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia publishes postgraduate-only fees that vary by faculty, mode of study, and student nationality. As a postgraduate-only institution, UIM does not carry undergraduate Bachelor-level pricing. The fee schedule reflects the resource intensity of supervised research and shariah-grounded coursework rather than the higher per-credit costs of the laboratory-intensive degrees at metropolitan medical and engineering schools.

Programme tier	Indicative annual fee (RM)	Programme structure
Master’s (coursework, Malaysian)	12,000 to 18,000	1.5 to 2 years, mixed coursework and dissertation
Master’s (research, Malaysian)	10,000 to 14,000	2 years, full thesis
PhD (research, Malaysian)	8,000 to 14,000 per year	3 to 4 years, full thesis with supervisor
Master’s and PhD (international)	Quoted separately	Subject to EMGS visa pass

These figures are indicative and should be confirmed against the current fee letter issued by the UIM admissions office. Postgraduate fees in Malaysian universities are typically structured on a per-semester or per-credit-hour basis rather than a flat annual quote, and UIM follows this convention. Prospective students should request the official fee schedule by faculty and specific programme code at the time of application.

The total programme cost for a UIM Master’s typically runs RM 24,000 to RM 36,000 across the 1.5- to 2-year duration, depending on faculty and mode. A UIM PhD typically runs RM 24,000 to RM 56,000 across the 3- to 4-year duration. By comparison, postgraduate fees at IIUM and USIM (federal public universities) are typically lower for Malaysian students due to public subsidy, while INCEIF University fees for Islamic finance specialist programmes typically run higher reflecting the narrower specialist market.

International student fees run on a separate schedule and should be requested directly from the admissions office. Postgraduate students should also budget for textbooks, conference travel, thesis printing and binding, viva voce examination fees, and any field-specific data collection costs that fall outside the published tuition figure.

UIM has access to the standard Malaysian postgraduate funding pathways: Mybrain15 (the Ministry of Higher Education postgraduate scholarship scheme), Yayasan Tunku Abdul Rahman, JPA scholarships, employer-sponsored programmes, and the universal PTPTN loan facility for eligible programmes. Faculty-level research assistantship positions may also offset tuition for full-time research candidates working on supervisor-funded projects.

MQA Accreditation and Institutional Status of Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia is registered on the Malaysian Qualifications Register under institution ID 790 and operates under the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996. The Ministry of Higher Education granted UIM university status as part of the institutional licence issued in 2013, and UIM has held that licence continuously since launch.

Individual postgraduate programmes at UIM are listed on the Malaysian Qualifications Register as they secure full MQA accreditation. The standard pathway for newly-launched programmes runs through provisional accreditation followed by full accreditation upon the first cohort completion and external review. Prospective students should verify the specific programme code on www2.mqa.gov.my/mqr before enrolment, particularly for newly-launched intake offerings.

The MQA institutional registration carries a set of compliance obligations that UIM must continuously satisfy: faculty qualifications appropriate to postgraduate supervision, programme structure aligned with the Malaysian Qualifications Framework (MQF) Master’s and Doctoral standards, assessment integrity, library and digital research infrastructure proportional to enrolment, and external examiner participation in viva voce examinations. The MQF for Master’s and Doctoral degrees, last revised in 2021, is the binding standards document.

UIM is not currently included in QS, THE, or Shanghai global university rankings, which is consistent with the institution’s small postgraduate-only enrolment profile and recent founding date. International ranking systems typically privilege research output volume, citation density, and undergraduate intake size, all of which favour large and long-established institutions.

For postgraduate students the practical relevance of MQA accreditation is twofold: graduate eligibility for public-sector employment and academic posts (which require MQA-recognised qualifications), and credential portability for further study abroad (where MQA listing serves as the Malaysian gateway to credential evaluation by foreign accreditation bodies).

Admissions at Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia operates rolling postgraduate admissions across the six faculties. There is no fixed semester intake gate of the kind that constrains undergraduate admissions at most Malaysian universities; instead, applications are processed on a year-round basis with start dates aligned to faculty supervisor availability and the academic calendar.

Entry to a Master’s programme requires a recognised Bachelor’s degree at the required CGPA from an MQA-listed Malaysian institution or a foreign-credential-evaluated equivalent, with relevant subject background where the chosen faculty requires it. Coursework Master’s programmes typically require a CGPA of 2.50 or above (the MQA standard floor), while research Master’s programmes typically require 2.75 or above with evidence of research aptitude.

Entry to a PhD programme requires a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline, identification of a research topic aligned with a faculty supervisor, and submission of a research proposal as part of the application. UIM faculties match candidates to supervisors based on disciplinary fit and supervisor availability rather than running a centralised PhD admission committee.

International applicants must hold credentials evaluated as equivalent to the Malaysian standards and apply for the EMGS student visa pass through Education Malaysia Global Services. EMGS processing typically runs four to six weeks and is administered separately from UIM’s internal admissions decision, so international applicants should factor in additional lead time.

Application enquiries should be directed to the UIM admissions office at the Petaling Jaya address (Bangunan Aisyah, Lot 287, Jalan 16/3, Seksyen 16, 46350 Petaling Jaya, Selangor), with the current postgraduate prospectus and contact details available at uim.edu.my. UIM also maintains social media channels for prospective student engagement.

Across all faculties UIM admissions decisions weigh academic record, subject-discipline alignment, statement of purpose, and supervisor capacity in the case of research-mode candidates. The institution has not published quantitative admission selectivity figures, which is typical for postgraduate-only institutions where intake size is determined by supervisor capacity rather than fixed cohort caps.

LAKIM Trust and the Kolej Islam Malaya Heritage of Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Universiti Islam Malaysia is wholly owned by Lembaga Pemegang Amanah Kolej Islam Malaya (LAKIM) Bhd, the trust body that succeeded the original Lembaga Bersekutu Pemegang Amanah Pengajian Tinggi Islam Malaysia. LAKIM stewards the institutional inheritance of Kolej Islam Malaya (KIM), the Muslim College that opened on 8 April 1955 in Petaling Jaya. The trust structure is the institutional vehicle through which the 1955 college legacy is carried into the present-day university.

Kolej Islam Malaya was the first tertiary institution established in the Federation of Malaya. Its founding in 1955 reflected three converging forces. First, the early-twentieth-century Islamic reformist movement led by Sheikh Tahir bin Jalaluddin and Syed Alwi bin Syed Sheikh al-Hadi, drawing on the work of the Egyptian scholars Sheikh Jamaluddin al-Afghani and Sheikh Muhammad Abduh, which sought to address the educational backwardness left by the colonial period. Second, the patronage of the Council of Malay Rulers, with DYMM Almarhum Tuanku Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah donating his palace at Jalan Kampung Jawa to serve as the first KIM campus and personally officiating the opening ceremony. Third, the founding leadership of Maulana Mohamed Abdul Alim Siddiqui and Dato’ Syed Ibrahim Omar Al-Sagoff, who carried the institutional design responsibility.

The transition from KIM to UIM ran through a multi-decade trust restructuring under LAKIM. Universiti Islam Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. was incorporated on 1 November 2013, the Ministry of Higher Education granted university status, and UIM commenced academic operations in November 2014 as Malaysia’s first postgraduate-only university. The 2014 launch positioned UIM differently from the 1955 college: rather than a tertiary institution serving early-stage Islamic education, UIM was designed as a graduate-research institution working at the Master’s and PhD level.

The institutional self-presentation by UIM is that the 1955 college and the 2013 university are continuous expressions of the same scholarly tradition. The university brands itself as carrying forward the reformist commitment to rigorous Islamic scholarship grounded in the Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah tradition, and the postgraduate-only focus is presented as the contemporary expression of that scholarly tradition rather than a departure from it.

Governance at UIM sits with the Board of UIM Sdn. Bhd., which reports to the LAKIM trustees. The Vice-Chancellor and the deans of the six faculties handle day-to-day academic management, with the Faculty of Syariah and Law and the Faculty of Quranic and Sunnah Studies carrying the heaviest weight in the institution’s classical Islamic identity. The trust governance model is materially different from the corporate-shareholder model that prevails at most Malaysian private universities, and is closer to the foundation-governance model that governs AIMST University (under MIED) and the public-trust model that governs INCEIF University (under Bank Negara).

Comparison with IIUM, USIM, and INCEIF: Where Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM) Sits

Universiti Islam Malaysia sits within a small but defined Malaysian higher-education sub-sector of explicitly Islamic universities. The four principal institutions in this sub-sector occupy distinct positions, and the differences are practical rather than nominal.

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), known in Malay as Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM), is a federal public university founded in 1983 with a main campus in Gombak, branch campuses in Kuantan and Gambang, and a globally-oriented intake. IIUM runs full undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD programmes across thirteen kulliyyahs covering Islamic revealed knowledge, law, economics, engineering, medicine, and sciences. Federal public funding keeps IIUM’s tuition substantially lower than the private-sector equivalents.

Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) is a federal public university in Bandar Baru Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, founded in 1998 with a strong undergraduate base and growing postgraduate intake. USIM emphasises the integration of Islamic revealed knowledge with the natural sciences and runs faculties spanning shariah and law, Quranic and Sunnah studies, economics and muamalat, dentistry, medicine, and science and technology.

INCEIF University, formerly the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance, is a postgraduate-only specialist university in Lorong Universiti A, founded in 2005 under Bank Negara Malaysia patronage. INCEIF runs only Islamic finance programmes, with deep specialisation in shariah-compliant banking, takaful, sukuk, and Islamic capital markets.

Within this set, Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM) is the private postgraduate-only generalist. UIM is private (LAKIM-owned) where IIUM and USIM are public, broader in faculty scope than INCEIF (six faculties versus one specialism), smaller in scale than IIUM and USIM, and operates exclusively at Master’s and PhD level where IIUM and USIM run the full undergraduate-postgraduate spectrum. The UIM positioning is most directly comparable to INCEIF in operating model (postgraduate-only, private trust ownership) but materially different in scope, since UIM covers the full breadth of classical Islamic disciplines plus contemporary applied fields rather than narrowing onto Islamic finance alone.

For prospective postgraduate students choosing between these four institutions, the practical decision points are usually programme fit (does the specific faculty research area align with the candidate’s intended thesis topic), fee structure (federal public versus private), supervisor reputation within the chosen specialism, and graduation outlook for the candidate’s intended employment sector. UIM’s narrower postgraduate-only intake means smaller cohort sizes and closer faculty-student supervision ratios, which is typically the operational advantage that postgraduate-only institutions offer over the larger universal universities.

Contact and Reference Information for Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM)

Prospective students and external enquirers can reach Universiti Islam Malaysia at the following addresses and channels:

• Petaling Jaya administrative office: Bangunan Aisyah, Lot 287, Jalan 16/3, Seksyen 16, 46350 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
• Cyberjaya academic campus: Cyberjaya, Sepang district, Selangor (refer to uim.edu.my for the current campus address)
• Website: uim.edu.my
• MQA institutional listing: www2.mqa.gov.my/mqr (institution ID 790)
• Ministry of Higher Education listing: discover.educationmalaysia.gov.my/university/universiti-islam-malaysia/
• Social channels: UIM maintains an active Facebook presence at facebook.com/InfoUIM for prospective student engagement and event announcements

Postgraduate applicants should request the current fee schedule by faculty and programme, the postgraduate prospectus, and the EMGS document checklist for international candidates directly from the admissions office. The UIM website is the authoritative source for live programme listings, intake calendar updates, and supervisor research interest profiles.

In summary: Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM) is a private postgraduate-only university registered under the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996, incorporated on 1 November 2013 and operational from November 2014, wholly owned by Lembaga Pemegang Amanah Kolej Islam Malaya (LAKIM) Bhd and presented as a continuation of Kolej Islam Malaya (1955), with administrative offices in Petaling Jaya and an initial academic campus in Cyberjaya, six faculties spanning the classical and applied Islamic disciplines, and indicative annual postgraduate fees beginning around RM 12,000 for Malaysian Master’s candidates.