Notes Remembering Professor Abdul Hamid

Abstract

I had known Professor Abdul Hamid (d. 1980) for over two decades, during the last part of his life. I had first heard of him way back in 1953 when I was a student at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill (Montreal). He had just then done his Ph.D. thesis on Sir Syed Ahmad Kahn. Prof. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, the Institute‟s Director, told me that he was due to visit the Institute for a few days at the end of his (first) stint in the U.S.; but, then, for some reason or other he did not. However, since 1963 when the Pakistan History Conference was hosted by the Punjab University, I had met him off and on whenever he visited Karachi and I Lahore, and at seminars and conferences. I had also corresponded with him on various academic matters, and after my appointment as the first Director of the Quaid-i-Azam Academy in January 1976. I had had extended consultations with him about the projects that had to be set up, the areas that called for early attention, and the steps that ought to be taken into making the Academy, then only a paper body, into a leading research institute. He also did a mini volume for the Quaid‟s Centenary series, entitled On Understanding Quaid-i-Azam, which was published by the National Book Foundation (NBF) on behalf of the Centenary Committee whose publication programme I was looking after