Campus setting	Suburban
Living cost	USD 500 per month
Student population	Large (More than 10,000)
International students	25%
Institution type	Public

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad conceived of the idea for an international institution of Islamic education in 1982 during a meeting between OIC leaders about the Islamization of knowledge. The idea was shared with the then Minister of Education, Dr.SulaimanDaud; the then Director-General of Education, Murad Mohamed Nor; and two others. Dr. Mohamed Kamal Hassan, then of the National University of Malaysia along with a senior academic official who attended the meeting, produced the first working paper on the concept of the university. IIUM was once a private university. As the University’s language of instruction was not to be Malay but instead English and Arabic, which was initially prohibited by Malaysian law, IIUM was initially incorporated under the currently-repealed Companies Act 1965. However, IIUM was officially made a public university on 23 May 1983, in accordance with Section 5A (2) of the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971, when the University received its Establishment Order from the then King, Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang, after an exchange of Diplomatic Notes of Co-sponsorship between the Government of Malaysia, seven other governments and OIC. A batch of 153 students from Malaysia and abroad were enrolled for the first academic session, which started on 8 July 1983. Courses were conducted under the Faculty of Economics, the Faculty of Laws, the Centre for Fundamental Knowledge and the Centre for Languages. The members of this first batch received their degrees and diplomas during the First Convocation held on 10 October 1987. 68 graduates were conferred the degree of Bachelor of Economics, 56 other graduated received the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and 29 Qadhis were conferred Diploma in Law and Administration of Islamic Judiciary. IIUM is headquartered at a 700-acre (2.8 km²) campus at Gombak, Selangor and has six other campuses. Three of campuses are in Kuantan, Pahang, with the Centre for Foundation Studies situated at Gambang, medical-centric campus situated at Bandar InderaMahkota and clinical campus situated near TengkuAmpuanAfzan Hospital. Two city campuses are located at Persiaran Duta and JalanDamansara, Kuala Lumpur, and another campus is located at Bandar UniversitiPagoh, Johor. ICT facilities IIUM has online services, such as i-Ma’luum, in which IIUM students can check and organise their personal schedules and information in a centralized online database. IIUM has an e-learning and online community portal (called i-Ta’leem), where students can organise and coordinate their schedules, announcements and activities.