Datur Azman bin Hassan, director general of Malaysia’s Department of National Unity and integration, presented the award to the businessman during a seminar based on the United Nation’s interfaith harmony and tolerance week.

Lauding India’s tradition of religious tolerance and multicultural values, Hassan said Malaysia also cherished the same values and its government was actively preserving and promoting that tradition by forming working committees on different areas.

Yusuffali, the lone non-Arab member of Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said he had employed 27,000 people of different nationalities in his nearly 100 shopping malls across the Gulf region without any discrimination.