Hakim Abdul Hameed: Life, Contribution and Facets (Hakim Abdul Hameed Hayat-o-Khidmat Ke Chand Goshe)
Dr. Ziauddin Falahi, Department of Islamic Studies, AMU, Aligarh
2015
Pp 196
Rs. 113/- Soft Bound
Reviewed by MD. ZAFAR MAHFOOZ NOMANI
As Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) happens to be most prodigious thinker and founder of Aligarh Muslim University, Hakim Abdul Hameed (1908-1999) has been one of the architects of post-independent India who nurtured Hamdard Group of Institutions. Both emerge out of sense of victimhood, the one in the aftermath of 1857 Mutiny and the other in the post-horrendous partition of India and Pakistan. The book in hand, Hakim Abdul Hameed: Life, Contribution and Facets is a timely publication by Dr. Ziauddin Falahi, Assistant Professor, Islamic Studies, AMU.
In his prefatory notes the author traces the raison de’tere right from 2000-2015. The author meticulously culled out the details of his electrifying personality during this period from Syed Ausaf Ali, Syed Hamid, Khalid Siddiqui, Khawar Hashmi, Abid Raza Bedar and others in giving an erudite biographical sketch of Hakim Abdul Hameed. One of the notable features of Hakim Saheb had been his search for excellence and people of eminence in promoting the cause of education and national re-construction. His visions were trans-disciplinary and holistic as evident by numerous institutes he established in Hamdard University. He has been one of the harbingers of national unity, national resurgence and social justice.
The book is divided in seven chapters, perplexing the multi-dimensional personality of Hakim Saheb. Chapter one deals with his genealogy, education and the lifestyle. Right from the childhood, he had been a voracious reader of all subjects of social concern. He has been a votary of peaceful co-existence and has been adored as Baba Rishi by no less than Justice H. R. Khanna of Supreme Court of India. Chapter two gives a vivid account of his radiating thoughts developed in post-Partition Indian sub-continent.
Hakim Saheb emerged as a role model for deep humanism, scientific enquiry, broad-mindedness and tolerance. Chapter three encompasses his professional and academic achievement by establishing Hamdard Dawakhana and his outpatient department. He established himself as the most prominent hakim of the time (Hukama e-Hakeem) by giving healing touch to innumerable patients. He launched a journal Hamdard Sehat in 1931 which produced monumental researches of some dreaded diseases and their remedies. He has been credited for revising the magnum opus Al Qanun Fi al- Tib by Abu Ali Sina in five volumes and has been instrumental in getting it translated into various prominent languages of the world. He will always be remembered for compiling glossaries and terminologies of Unani Medicine as sixth volume of Al Qanun Fi al- Tib.
Chapter fourth presents a vivid account of expanding horizon of Hamdard University, Hamdard Foundation, Hamdard Education Society, Ghalib Academy and India Islamic Culture Centre, etc. and its overall impact in making oriental and occidental knowledge at one roof. Chapter fifth establishes him as the successor of Hakim Ajmal Khan by undertaking inventiveness and innovativeness of Unani medicine. Chapters sixth and seventh have been an appraisal of plethora of literature accumulated by Dr. Khawar Hashmi and Dr. Abid Raza Bedar and termed by the author as Hameedi Literature.
The book establishes Hakim Saheb as a role model for leaders of change in post-independent India. Hakim Saheb is no more, but, after 15 years of his death, people of the contemporary India are bound to term him as ‘a master builder’, ‘a visionary par excellence’, ‘a healing power’, ‘a man ahead of his time’, ‘pulse of the nation’, ‘great patriot’, ‘a titan’ and no less a ‘mahatma’.
The author of the book, Dr. Ziauddin, an emerging young scholar of Islam and Muslim issues in the subcontinent, is to be commended for his singular devotion in bringing forth the biographical account of a great personality of post-independent India, Hakim Abdul Hameed. He has been very objective in his assessment as he doesn’t seem to be swayed by sentimental and demagogic account of his personality. His work carries great reference value as he has not only identified the basic sources, but provided a handy bibliographic round up of Hakim Abdul Hameed so that the future researchers may throw innovative shades and offer novel narrations. Thus the author has indebted the readers by his forceful articulations and empirical evidences in portraying Hakim Abdul Hameed really as one of the architects of post-independent India.