The great Muslim scholar and linguist of the Indian subcontinent, Maulavi Abdul Haq

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On April 20, 1870 AD, the great Muslim scholar and linguist of the subcontinent, Maulavi Abdul Haq, was born in Hapur near Ghaziabad in northern India. He is regarded as Baba-e-Urdu (Father of Urdu), because of his untiring efforts to make it the lingua franca of the subcontinent.
He was also well-versed in Persian, Arabic, English and the Deccani Urdu dialect of southern India. A product of Aligarh Muslim University, he went to Hyderabad-Deccan, where his activities included teaching and translating, since he viewed Urdu as the cultural and political identity of the Muslims of the subcontinent.
Following establishment of the Osmania University in Hyderabad in 1917 by the ruler, Asef Jah VII, under Abdul-Haq's influence all subjects at the university, including medicine, science and technology were taught in Urdu and the institution became a patron of Urdu and Persian literature and linguistic heritage.
He published numerous works of Urdu poetry, as well as treatises on linguistics, Islam, history, politics and philosophy. After his retirement in 1930, he compiled and edited a comprehensive and authoritative English-Urdu dictionary. He strongly protested the campaign by India's Hindu nationalists to promote the use of Hindi as the national language of British India.
Abdul-Haq became a fierce critic of Mohandas Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, and joined the All India Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. In November 1947, he migrated to Pakistan, where he launched journals, set up libraries and schools, and published a large number of books. Abdul- Haq's work, especially helped preserve the distinct Deccani or "Old Urdu" linguistic and literary traditions of Hyderabad and southern India.