Friday, May 28, 2021

Sir Syed of South India: Mumtaz Ahmad Khan is no more, now is the need to take forward his legacy



Shams Ur Rehman Alavi

Leading educationist, social worker and visionary, Dr Mumtaz Ahmad Khan, passed away on May 27, 2021. 

Called Baba-i-Talim in Karnataka for his achievements in setting up institutions and colleges, he was also lovingly termed as 'Sir Syed of South'.

Khan was considered a prominent social worker and educationist in the country. He was born in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu on September 6, 1935. 

His father Yusuf Ismail Khan was a lawyer and his mother Saadat-un-Nisa was also a graduate, in the pre-independent era. Both had got their degrees from AMU. 

In 1963, he finished his MBBS degree from Madras University. He did MS in surgery from Stanley Medical College, Chennai. At the age of 31, he set up the Al Ameen Society in Bengaluru. 

Under the society, 250 institutions are running all over the country. Al Ameen Hospital in Bangalore [now, Bengaluru] is also one of his achievement. He had realised that the need for institutions, educational as well as those in other important sectors.

Al Ameen Medical College in Bijapur is yet another example. For a long time, he was printer and publisher of Bengaluru's famous Salar Urdu daily as well. The newspaper carried the news at first lead. We are posting the front page obituary published in The Daily Salar. 

Not just colleges, schools and hospital but sports clubs, amaanat bank, ensuring mechanism to provide loan to needy without interest, scholarships to students who came from financially weak background and not keeping his work to just Karnataka, but expanding it outside too.

Al Ameen has presence in many other states, from Maharashtra to Gujarat, UP and North East. Setting up so many colleges, institutions and leaving behind a rich legacy! It took vision, commitment and sacrifices. Tens of thousands of students who come out of these institutions year after year, it's a testimony to the vision of Mumtaz Ahmad Khan sb.

Former Union minister K Rahman Khan said that his immense contribution and sacrifices led to setting up of the Al Ameen institutions, and he left them for the welfare of the comunity. M Aleemullah Khan, the honorary secretary of Salar Publications said that he set up institutions and took them to success.