Syed Muhammad Salim (Pakistani historian)

The author's introduction in his book states that Syed Muhammad Salim was born on 28 Muharram 1341, corresponding to 22 September 1922, at Tijara in Alwar State; his father was Abd al-Wahid and his grandfather Abd al-Hamid. He began, as respectable families did, with the Qur'an, then went to school, passed the Munshi Fazil (1938) and Maulvi Fazil (1939) examinations of the University of the Punjab, studied at the Arabic College in Delhi, and at Aligarh Muslim University took an MA in Arabic with distinction, placing third in the university, together with a law degree. His teachers included Maulvi Imtiyaz Ali, Maulana Abd al-Aziz Memon and Mirza Mahmud Beg. ¹

After the announcement of Pakistan he reached Karachi by sea via Bombay on 29 November 1947, worked in the revenue department and then as a schoolteacher, became a lecturer at Government College, Hyderabad, and taught at colleges in Shikarpur, Mirpur Khas and Nawabshah. The book says he resigned from government service rather than give up his intellectual affiliation with the Jamaat-e-Islami, then became principal of the Shah Waliullah Oriental College at Mansura, Hyderabad, until private colleges were nationalised and he was transferred to Shikarpur, where he retired; later he directed the Idara-e Ta'limi Tahqiq in Lahore and its journal Afkar-e Mu'allim. ¹

His pupil Syed Aziz al-Rahman compiled his Tarikh-i Khatt o Khattatin, published by an academy bearing his name in Karachi in 2001. The author opens by calling calligraphy the Muslims' own art, bound to the Qur'an: as its recitation gave rise to tajwid, its copying gave rise to calligraphy; he sees its decline beginning with European domination and movable type, while lithography kept it alive because it needed scribes. ^{2 3 4}