Author Of “Cikgu E” Book Confirms Title No Longer Being Sold
Publisher and author Mohammad Qayyum has won several awards for his works but others cry plagiarism and shoddy editing.
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The Anugerah Buku Negara (Malaysia Book Awards) is a recognition given to high quality works published in Malaysia and covers a range of categories.
However, there’s recently a dispute about one of the winners this year. Intellectual property lawyer Iman Danial Hakim claimed the author known as Major (R) Mohammad Qayyum A Badarudin plagiarised the works of others in his books.
He claimed the author also used Google Translate to lift paragraphs from other books, blogs, and online posts to ‘’write’’ his books.
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Iman Daniel further questioned how several titled VIPs signed off on the award certificate.
Mohammad Qayyum previously won an Anugerah Buku Negara award in 2019 for being a Prolific Publisher.
Most recently on Wednesday, he won two awards at the 2025 installation held on the sidelines of the Selangor International Book Fair. It’s understood that Mohammad Qayyum, also the Chief Executive Officer of publishing house Casamas Resources Sdn Bhd, won the awards for Sumud Flotila and Cikgu E.
The evidence to back the claims
Iman Danial shared that he and his friends managed to gather evidence of plagiarism five years ago.
In several screenshots, it showed that Mohammad Qayyum allegedly lifted complete paragraphs and pages from other sources and passed off as his own writing in various books.
What You Should & Shouldn't Tell Your Kidhttps://t.co/qnFRWwdTbe pic.twitter.com/exbeoYKB2K
— Iman 🇵🇸 🇲🇾 (@ImanDanialHakim) November 19, 2020
Others dug around and found similar evidence of copying whole lines and messing up the flow of writing, a mistake many feel should have disqualified him from winning book awards.
Pemuda Hari Ini pg 146-148
— hurun 👁️🍉👁️ (@hurun_heh) November 14, 2020
Okay, for these he messed up the flow. He was ranting abt how youth these days are too ignorant and selfish. After 2 paragraph, he suddenly mentioned Imam Hassan Al-Banna. Maybe he wants to give some examples on how the Imam spend his youth. pic.twitter.com/ZFCLXjGkSI
Dah la ayat copy paste google translate. Lepastu ada jugak ayat bercampur inggeris-melayu.
— Kasma Diey 🌸 (@dieyanayuni) November 13, 2020
Badass my ass. pic.twitter.com/aW21ZJO35x
Publisher denies plagiarism claims
Mohammad Qayyum denies the claims of plagiarism but admitted not giving credit and messing up the flow of his stories.
According to a 2020 Malaysiakini report, he had withdrawn the book titled Dekad Membaca from sales and offered refunds for the poor writing.
TRP reached out to him concerning the most recent allegation that he had published the book titled Cikgu E without getting permission from the late teacher’s family.
Cikgu E, whose full name is Nassry Mardee Ismail, was a teacher who made headlines as he battled three types of cancer. He succumbed to his illness in November.
Mohammad Qayyum told TRP that he has recalled the sales of the book Cikgu E, but refused to elaborate further. He only said that he “was not interested to proceed (with selling the book)”.
He did say that he would “continue fighting to educate and make the public smarter”.
He also quoted a Malay idiom, ‘’Lihat dengan mata burung bukan mata tempurung’’ (Look with a bird’s eye view, not from under a shell). It’s an advice to see things with an open mind than a narrow, self-limited one.
He’s currently working on a book dedicated to cancer survivors.
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