 He served as the Head of the Department of Malay Studies in the National University of Singapore from 1967 to 1988.He was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaya in 1988, before becoming a professor at the Centre for General Studies in the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 1995.He later transferred to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in 1997, before becoming a principal research fellow at the Institute of the Malay World and Civilisation of the same university in 1999.