Eqbal Ahmad’s Followers (142)

Eqbal Ahmad

Born

Irki, Bihar, India

Died

May 11, 1999

Website

http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal

Genre

Contemporary, Politics, History

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Eqbal Ahmad was a Pakistani political scientist, writer, journalist, and anti-war activist. He was strongly critical of the Middle East strategy of the United States as well as what he saw as the "twin curse" of nationalism and religious fanaticism in such countries as Pakistan.
Eqbal Ahmad was born in the village of Irki in Bihar, India in 1933 or 1934. A few years later, his father was murdered over a land dispute, while the young Eqbal lay beside him. During the partition of India in 1947, he and his elder brothers migrated to Pakistan.
Ahmad graduated from Foreman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1951 with a degree in economics. After serving briefly as an army officer, he enrolled at Occidental College in California as a Rotary Eqbal Ahmad was a Pakistani political scientist, writer, journalist, and anti-war activist. He was strongly critical of the Middle East strategy of the United States as well as what he saw as the "twin curse" of nationalism and religious fanaticism in such countries as Pakistan.
Eqbal Ahmad was born in the village of Irki in Bihar, India in 1933 or 1934. A few years later, his father was murdered over a land dispute, while the young Eqbal lay beside him. During the partition of India in 1947, he and his elder brothers migrated to Pakistan.
Ahmad graduated from Foreman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1951 with a degree in economics. After serving briefly as an army officer, he enrolled at Occidental College in California as a Rotary Fellow in American History in 1957. From 1958 to 1960, he studied political science and middle eastern history at Princeton, later earning his Ph.D.
From 1960 to 1963, Ahmad lived in North Africa, working primarily in Algeria, where he joined the National Liberation Front and worked with Frantz Fanon. He was a member of the Algerian delegation to peace talks at Evian.
When he returned to the United States, Ahmad taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago (1964 - 1965) and Cornell University in the school of Labour Relations (1965 - 1968). During these years, he became known as "one of the earliest and most vocal opponents of American policies in Vietnam and Cambodia". In 1969, he married the teacher and writer Julie Diamond. From 1968 to 1972, he was a fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute in Chicago.
In 1971, Ahmad was indicted with the anti-war Catholic priests, Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, along with four other Catholic pacifists, on charges of conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger. After fifty-nine hours of deliberations, the jury declared a mistrial.
From 1972 to 1982, Ahmad was Senior Fellow at the Institution for Policy Studies. From 1973 to 1975, he served as the first director of its overseas affiliate, the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.
In 1982, Ahmad joined the faculty at Hampshire College, in Amherst Massachusetts, where he taught world politics and political science.
In the early 1990's he was granted a parcel of land in Pakistan by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government to build an independent, alternative university, named Khaldunia. The land was later seized by Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, reportedly to build a golf course and club.
A prolific writer and journalist, Eqbal was widely consulted by revolutionaries, journalists, activist leaders and policymakers around the world. He was an editor of the journal Race and Class, contributing editor of Middle East Report and L'Economiste du Tiers Monde, co-founder of Pakistan Forum, and an editorial board member of Arab Studies Quarterly. Ahmad was "that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority, a companion in arms to such diverse figures as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Richard Falk, Fred Jameson, Alexander Cockburn and Daniel Berrigan."
Upon his retirement from Hampshire in 1997, he settled permanently in Pakistan, where he continued to write a weekly column, for Dawn, Pakistan's oldest English language newspaper. Eqbal died in Islamabad on May 11, 1999, of heart failure following surgery for colon cancer, diagnosed just one week before.

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Eqbal Ahmad’s books

Average rating: 4.35 · 739 ratings · 102 reviews · 17 distinct works • Similar authors

	Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire by Eqbal Ahmad, Edward W. Said (Foreword), David Barsamian 4.48 avg rating — 300 ratings — published 2000 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Terrorism: Theirs and Ours by Eqbal Ahmad, David Barsamian (Foreword) 4.19 avg rating — 225 ratings — published 2001 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad by Eqbal Ahmad, Noam Chomsky (Foreword), Carollee Bengelsdorf (Editor) 4.51 avg rating — 75 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Between Past and Future: Selected Essays on South Asia by Eqbal Ahmad, Dohra Ahmad (Editor), Iftikhar Ahmad (Editor) 4.36 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2004	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad 4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Political Culture and Foreign Policy: Notes on American Intervention in the Third World it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1979	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Invasion of Lebanon. (Race & Class. Spring 1983. Special Double Issue. Volume XXIV. Number 4.) by Eqbal Ahmad, Ibrahim Abu Lughod 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	একবাল আহমদ : পাঠ ও বিবেচনা by Eqbal Ahmad, শরীফ আতিক-উজ-জামান (Editor, Translator ) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Indirect guilt 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Race and Class: A Journal for Black and Third World Liberation (Volume 34, Number 3) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Eqbal Ahmad…

Quotes by Eqbal Ahmad (?)

“We are living in modern times throughout the world and yet are dominated by medieval minds.”
― Eqbal Ahmad, Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire

tags: extremism, fundamentalism, medieval, modern, politics

26 likes

“Colonial battles were never remembered unless a Custer was killed or a Gordon besieged. Millions of people may die, but the memories are of Custer and Gordon.”
― Eqbal Ahmad, Confronting Empire

1 likes

“Those who glorify the past and seek to re-create it, almost invariably fail, while those who view it comprehensively and critically are able to draw on the past in meaningful and lasting ways.”
― Eqbal Ahmad, Confronting Empire

1 likes

See all Eqbal Ahmad's quotes »

Eqbal Ahmad’s Followers (142)

Eqbal Ahmad

Combine EditionsEqbal Ahmad’s books

Combine Editions
Eqbal Ahmad’s books