Eqbal Ahmad

Eqbal Ahmad was a Pakistani political scientist, writer and peace activist who gained recognition for his anti-war activism and support of global resistance movements. He contributed extensively to the study of the Near East while maintaining a presence in both South Asian and American intellectual circles. His work focused on opposition to militarism, nuclear arms and ideological rigidity.

Early life and education

Ahmad was born in 1933 in the village of Irki within the Bihar and Orissa Province of British India. He belonged to a family of Indian Muslim landowners. During his childhood, his father was murdered in his presence due to a land dispute. When the Partition of India occurred in 1947, he and his elder brother migrated to Pakistan on foot. He lost contact with his family in New Delhi during this journey and fled toward Lahore while carrying a gun.

He graduated from Forman Christian College in Lahore in 1951 with a degree in economics. After a brief period serving as an army officer, he was wounded during the First Kashmir War in 1948. He later enrolled at Occidental College in California in 1957 as a Rotary Fellow. In 1958, he moved to Princeton University to study political science and Middle Eastern history. He earned his PhD from Princeton in 1965.

Career

Between 1960 and 1963, Ahmad lived in North Africa and worked primarily in Algeria. He joined the National Liberation Front and collaborated with Frantz Fanon and other Algerian nationalists fighting against French rule. Although he was offered a position in the first independent Algerian government, he chose to remain an independent intellectual. He returned to the United States after this period.

Ahmad taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1964 to 1965 and at Cornell University from 1965 to 1968. His vocal support for Palestinian rights during the 1967 war led to isolation in the academic community, which caused him to leave Cornell. From 1968 to 1972, he worked as a fellow at the University of Chicago and the Adlai Stevenson Institute. In January 1971, he was indicted as part of the Harrisburg Seven on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger. He was eventually acquitted of all charges in 1972 after a jury declared a mistrial.

He served as a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies from 1972 to 1982. From 1973 to 1975, he directed the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 1982, he joined the faculty at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where he taught world politics and political science until 1997. He held the title of Professor Emeritus following his retirement. In 1990, he began splitting his time between Amherst and Islamabad.

During his time in Pakistan, he wrote a weekly column for the newspaper Dawn. He also attempted to establish Khaldunia University, an independent liberal arts college in Islamabad, though this effort was unsuccessful. Ahmad was the founding chancellor of the Textile Institute of Pakistan. He is noted for having interviewed Osama bin Laden in Peshawar in 1986 and predicting that the leader would eventually turn against the United States and Pakistan.

Personal life

Ahmad married Julie Diamond, a writer and teacher from New York, in 1969. They had one daughter named Dohra. He died of heart failure on 11 May 1999 at an Islamabad hospital while receiving treatment for colon cancer.

Awards and recognition

Edward Said identified Ahmad as one of two primary influences on his own intellectual development. Kabir Babar described him as one of the most outstanding thinkers to originate from the Subcontinent. The Textile Institute of Pakistan awards its highest honor, the Dr. Eqbal Ahmed Achievement Award, to graduates who reflect his values. A memorial lecture series has also been established at Hampshire College in his honor.