3 A TRIBUTE TO Dr. Hafeez Malik 17 March 1930 - 20 April 2020 Aroosha Mansuri* My grandfather, Dr. Hafeez Malik was an esteemed scholar and a prolific writer. But rather than repeat a list of accomplishments one can easily find elsewhere, including in this very journal, today I would like to share some aspects of the man not always apparent in his scholarly work, characteristics that only those who knew him personally saw: his open-mindedness, his endless intellectual curiosity, and his generosity of spirit. Dr. Malik was born March 17, 1930 in Ghakhar Mandi, a small town in Gujranwala District of colonial India. He was raised by a single mother, a schoolteacher who believed in the value of education: she would point to his qalam, pen and say, “use it wisely and it can open doors for you.” He was taught Arabic, Farsi and Urdu by his maternal grandfather. He entered Government College in Lahore in colonial India and was graduated in the entirely new country of Pakistan. In those years he was an ardent supporter of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and became an active member of the Muslim League, calling for the creation of Pakistan once the British colonial rule was ended. My grandfather’s first book, based on his doctoral dissertation, traced the development of Muslim nationalism in India and Pakistan in which he himself was involved. Although Pakistan was created for the Muslims of India, my grandfather was preternaturally open minded, always sensitive to the plight and rights of religious minorities. For example, when asked in a social setting what caste he came from, he would say “dalit” (untouchable) to show his distaste for the question. He liked to speak for the oppressed: despite his personal relationship with Prime Minister Bhutto, my grandfather vehemently disagreed with the Bhutto government’s amendment to the constitution in 1974 declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslim. His open-mindedness embraced the beautiful and good in all cultures and religions, and his special love was Christian sacred music: he often told me that Shubert’s “Ave Maria” was his favorite song. He was also unreservedly curious and never tired of learning. In the last few months of his life he had acquired a twenty-three volume compilation of 4 writings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, the founder of Ahmadiyya Movement, entitled Roohani Khazain. As with everything he read, I saw that he had highlighted dozens of pages in yellow and stuck notes throughout the volumes, in preparation for writing an article. Sadly, he passed away before he could finish it. In his final days, when his body began to fail but his mind was still sharp, he would ask me to read him the poetry of Iqbal and Ghalib. If I mispronounced or omitted a word, he would immediately correct me: he had memorized every line of these verses. He was so in love with the beauty of high Urdu and the hidden meanings buried within it, one of my grandfather’s books was about Allama Iqbal’s poetry and philosophy. But his most salient characteristic had less to do with the intellect than with the heart. My grandfather nurtured friendships across the world and across decades. He counted many political leaders, academics, writers, and artists among his friends. Rafiq Tarar, the ninth President of Pakistan, was once a schoolboy, walking miles together with my grandfather to their village school; if one did not have lunch, the other would share his. Whenever the two met later in life, they would instantly switch to Punjabi and carry on like the two schoolboys they once were. Another lifelong friend, confidant and intellectual companion was Javed Iqbal, the son of the great poet Allama Iqbal. He also fostered friendships with scholars in the Soviet Union, especially among the “Stans” of Central Asia. He visited the Soviet Union over a dozen times, and was brilliant at maintaining long-distance friendships with Soviet scholars, in particular Yuri Gankovsky. While there are far too many friends to mention, my grandfather’s three closest among Villanova colleagues must be. My grandfather was honored to help Father Kail Ellis establish the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at Villanova; he had...