New York USA Souvenir 1989 — Page 37
DR. SYED BARAKAT AHMAD I. F. S. Dr. Syed Barakat Ahmad was a distinguished number of the New Y orkJamaat for a number of years before his sad demise in Delhi, India on July 30, 1988. He was an Indian diplomat, an author, a historian and an engag- ing conversationalist. He belonged to an intellectual family of Delhi. His father Dr. Shafi Ahmad was a journalist and author while his mother was an eminent writer. Before his appointment as India's High Commissioner to the West Indies Dr. Ahmad was adviser to the Indian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and dealt with Arab affairs in the Special Political Committee. He was a member of the In- dian Foreign Service for quarter of a century, was a constitution- al lawyer by discipline, a linguist and historian by education and a diplomat by profession. He represented India at the United Na- tions in committees dealing with the Arab-Israeli dispute, ques- tion of Human Rights and Colonial Affairs. He spent four years in the United States, three in Europe, three in Australia and twelve in the Middle East on diplomatic assignments. Dr. Barakat Ahmad was a fellow of the Indian Council of His- torical Research. For more than 20 years he studied closely the methodology of teaching the Holy Quran and the Arabic lan- guage in village mosques, small town maktabs and in the great Universities of Al Azhar, Lahore and Aligarh. His book "Intro- duction to Qur 'anic Script" was the outcome of long experience and profound scholarship. Among his other publications, "Muhammad and the Jews" has been acclaimed as a model of his- torical scholarship. During his visit to New York Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV spe- cially went to see him at his residence during his long illness and prayed for him. He moved back to Delhi in July last year from New York after spending three years in various U. S. A. hospitals during which he rendered in English an Urdu book of his spiritual chief Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad "Bloodshed in the Name of Religion. " He was a great scholar indeed. May his soul rest in peace. 37