PM Shehbaz Sharif expresses grief over the death of former Deputy Ameer of JI & Islamic scholar Professor Khurshid Ahmad

ISLAMABAD, April 14 (SABAH): Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the death of former Deputy Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islamic scholar Professor Khurshid Ahmad.

In a statement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif prayed for the elevation of the departed soul’s ranks and for strength and patience for the bereaved family.

PM Shehbaz Sharif said Professor Khurshid Ahmad made valuable contribution for the promotion of Islamic economics.

It is worth mentioning here that renowned statesman and thinker, political activist, economist, author, editor, and researcher Professor Khurshid Ahmad (born March 23, 1932, in Delhi) passed away peacefully on April 13, 2025, in Leicester, UK, surrounded by his family members. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun.

Professor Khurshid Ahmad was among those distinguished Pakistani personalities recognized globally as thought leaders and advocates for Pakistan and the Muslim Ummah. He was a scholar and leader whose sincerity, intellectual depth, and patriotism were acknowledged even by those who held differing ideological and political views.

He became politically active in his school days in Delhi as a member of ‘Bachcha Muslim League’ and took an active part in the Pakistan Movement. His family migrated to Karachi after the Partition, where his intellectual activism led him to the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), an Islamist student organization, and his leadership role transformed it into one of the most vibrant student movements in Pakistan. He played a key role in the democratic struggle against President Ayub Khan’s martial law as IJT’s Nazim-e-Aala (president) and was imprisoned. His intellectual and political leadership was one of the main contributors to the defeat of the student organizations inspired by the Leftist ideology and their retreat from major universities and colleges of Pakistan in the 1960s and 70s and eventually from the political scene of the country. Later, he rose through the ranks of Jama’at-e-Islami and became one of the closest associates of its founder, Maulana Saiyyed Abul Aala Maududi, particularly within the top intellectual leadership of the Islamic movement. He started his academic career teaching economics at the University of Karachi and wrote several treatises on Islamic ideology and economics. He also inspired and gathered a large number of international scholars around him to organize a global intellectual movement for the Islamization of contemporary knowledge, especially in the policy arena. 

Professor Khurshid Ahmad served as a member of the Senate of Pakistan for more than two decades, from 1985 to 2012, with a brief interruption, and in 1978, he held the position of Federal Minister for Planning and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of Pakistan. In 1979, he founded the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in Islamabad – the first non-government think tank of Pakistan – and continued to serve as its chairman until 2021. He was also a founding trustee of the International Islamic University, Islamabad; founding chairman of Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK and president of its Markfield Institute of Higher Education (the first academic centre of Islamic economics and finance in the Western world); founder chairman of the University of Management and Technology, Lahore; and patron and pioneering board member of several institutions and organizations across the Muslim world.

Professor Khurshid Ahmad authored and edited over 130 books in Urdu and English. His books and articles have been translated and published in numerous languages, including Arabic, French, Turkish, Bengali, Japanese, German, Indonesian, Hindi, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and others. His scholarly statesmanship and publications contributed a lot in translating and transmitting the Islamic ideology, especially inspired by the works of Iqbal and Maududi into the mainstream national discourse of Pakistan. Many of his books are essential reads for higher education courses in the country and preparation of CSS exams.

Doctoral dissertations on his intellectual contributions have been written at prominent universities in Malaysia, Turkey, and Germany. In recognition of his academic and research achievements, the University of Malaya (Malaysia) awarded him an honorary PhD in Education in 1982, Loughborough University (UK) conferred upon him an honorary PhD in Literature in 2003, and the International Islamic University Malaysia awarded him an honorary PhD in Islamic Economics in 2006.

For his remarkable contributions to Islamic economics, Professor Khurshid Ahmad was honored by the Islamic Development Bank in 1989 with its highest award. In 1990, the Government of Saudi Arabia recognized his international services to Islam by bestowing upon him the prestigious King Faisal Award. Additionally, the Government of Pakistan honored him in 2010 with the highest civilian award, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, in acknowledgment of his lifelong services.

Professor Khurshid Ahmad played a pivotal role in the strengthening of Pakistan’s parliamentary services. He was a founding figure behind the Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services and the research department in the Senate of Pakistan. His contemporary statesmen remember him as one of the leading senators involved in the oversight functions of the parliament, with the highest number of resolutions and questions on a plethora of issues. His participation in the house committees was also exemplary, and a lot of his colleagues from various political parties relied heavily on his research and evidence-based homework, which he rigorously used to do for all legislative proceedings.

Pakistan and the nation have lost one of their greatest and most revered statesmen and thinkers. More than that, it is an irreparable loss for the Muslim Ummah, to which Professor Khurshid Ahmad devoted his entire life, tirelessly working for its emancipation through his intellectual and political pursuits. 

Professor Khurshid was the elder brother of Admiral Zameer Ahmad (late) and Professor Dr. Anis Ahmad, vice chancellor, Riphah International University. He has left behind three sons and three daughters.