Eqbal Ahmad was a Pakistani political scientist, writer and academic known for his anti-war activism, his support for resistance movements globally and academic contributions to the study of the Near East.
31 Facts About Eqbal Ahmad
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Eqbal Ahmad participated in the Algerian Revolution, then studied the Vietnam War and US imperialism, becoming an early opponent of the war upon his return to the US in the mid-1960s.
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Eqbal Ahmad was born in the village of Irki in the Gaya District of the Indian state of Bihar.
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Eqbal Ahmad graduated from Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1951 with a degree in economics.
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Eqbal Ahmad went on to teach at the University of Illinois and at Cornell University until 1968.
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Eqbal Ahmad was one of the most prominent left-wing academics in both Pakistan and the United States.
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Eqbal Ahmad's legacy is that of strong opposition to militarism, bureaucracy, nuclear arms and ideological rigidity, while a strong supporter of democracy and self-determination.
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From 1960 to 1963, Eqbal Ahmad lived in North Africa, working primarily in Algeria, where he joined the National Liberation Front and worked with Frantz Fanon and some Algerian nationalists who were fighting a war of liberation against the French in Algeria.
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Eqbal Ahmad was offered an opportunity to join the first independent Algerian government, but refused in favour of life as an independent intellectual.
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Eqbal Ahmad was fluent in Urdu, English, Persian and Arabic.
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When he returned to the United States, Eqbal Ahmad taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Cornell University in the school of Labour Relations.
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In 1971, Eqbal Ahmad was indicted as one of the Harrisburg Seven, with the anti-war Catholic priest Philip Berrigan, Berrigan's future wife, Sister Elizabeth McAlister, and four other Catholic pacifists, on charges of conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger.
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Eqbal Ahmad had correctly predicted that Saddam's fall would bring in sectarian violence and chaos in the region.
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Eqbal Ahmad had interviewed Osama Bin Laden in Peshawar in 1986.
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From 1972 to 1982, Eqbal Ahmad was Senior Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
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In 1982, Eqbal Ahmad joined the faculty at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, a progressive school which was the first college in the nation to divest from South Africa.
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Eqbal Ahmad continued to promote social democracy for Muslim countries like in the Scandinavian countries to prevent extremism, poverty and injustice in those countries.
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Eqbal Ahmad was the founding chancellor of the then newly established Textile Institute of Pakistan, a textile-oriented science, design and business-degree-awarding institute.
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The institute professes to be driven by the values Eqbal Ahmad stood for and awards its most prestigious honour, the Dr Eqbal Ahmed Achievement Award, to one graduate unanimously deemed by the faculty as reflective of Eqbal Ahmad's values at its annual convocation.
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Eqbal Ahmad died of heart failure on 11 May 1999 at an Islamabad hospital in Pakistan, where he was being treated for colon cancer.
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Eqbal Ahmad had married Julie Diamond in 1969, a teacher and a writer from New York and they had one daughter, Dohra.
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Eqbal Ahmad was admired as "an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority".
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Eqbal Ahmad collaborated with such left-wing journalists, activists, and thinkers as Chomsky, Said, Howard Zinn, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Richard Falk, Fredric Jameson, Alexander Cockburn and Daniel Berrigan.
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Eqbal Ahmad influenced several left-leaning activists including Chomsky, Zinn, Abu-Lughod, Richard Falk, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Cockburn, Said and Roy.
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Eqbal Ahmad is credited for his insight into Islamic terrorism; he publicly criticised global support for the Islamic fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan.
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Eqbal Ahmad describes himself as a 'harshly secular' person and an 'internationalist' but he was quick to praise elements of religious thought and practice that he found admirable among the Islamic Sufis.
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Eqbal Ahmad saw Islam as concerned, above all, with the welfare of common people.
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Eqbal Ahmad's leftism was his humanity and this only reinforced the pride he took in being a Pakistani in a challenging time.
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Eqbal Ahmad brought wisdom and integrity to the cause of oppressed peoples all over the world.
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Eqbal Ahmad was a left-wing secularist, known for his lifelong denunciation and critiques of Western imperialism.
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Eqbal Ahmad's writing on the Muslim world in particular was notable for its critical vigilance and integrity, its resistance to received wisdom.