Dr. A.N.M Ehsanul Maliki

Today is the 52nd death anniversary of Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah, the author of twentieth century Bangla grammar. He was one of the best linguists, epistemologists, linguists, a distinguished religious researcher, folklorist, translator, text-critic, creative writer, poet and linguist in Asia. Rose was born on Friday, July 10, 1885, in an aristocratic Muslim family in the village of Peyara in the 24th Parganas. He was the fifth child of father Mofiz Uddin Ahmed and mother Harunnesa Khatun. In the beginning, Muhammad Shahidullah was named `Muhammad Ibrahim`. But later Mofiz Uddin changed the name of his son Muhammad Ibrahim to `Muhammad Shahidullah`. He was loved by everyone from his childhood. Everyone in the family used to call him `Sadananda`, the teachers of the school used to call him `Sirajudaulah`. He later named himself `Jnanananda Sangrami`.

The foundation of his early education came from his family. He was later admitted to an English school in Howrah district. There he came in contact with the renowned linguist Acharya Harinath Dey and mastered more than twenty languages. Notable among them are- Bengali, Urdu, English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, Assam, Oriya, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Avestan, Latin, Tibetan, German, French, Ancient Sinhalese, Pashto, Munda, Sindhi, Marhati, Maithali etc. . From that school he successfully passed the entrance examination with Sanskrit in 1904. Passed FA from Calcutta Presidency College in 1906. He was the first Bengali Muslim to pass BA in Sanskrit with first honors from Kolkata City College in 1910. He then enrolled in the Department of Comparative Linguistics at Calcutta University in 1912 and obtained his post-graduate degree. Two years later, in 1924, he obtained a BL degree in law. He was again the first Bengali to go to Europe for higher studies in 1926, where he obtained a doctorate in 1928 from the University of Paris Sorbonne, studying the ancient Bengali language, the Charyapadavas. In the same year he received a diploma in basic research in phonology from the University of Paris.

Early in his career, he served as the headmaster of Sitakundu High School from 1914 to 1915. After that he became a lawyer for some time. He was also elected Vice Chairman of Bashirhat Municipality. Later, Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah worked as a Research Fellow of Sarat Chandra Lahiri under Professor Dinesh Chandra Sen of Kolkata University. When the University of Dhaka was established in 1921, he joined the university on 2 June of that year as a lecturer in the Sanskrit and Bangla departments. At the same time Salimullah was appointed as the resident teacher of Muslim Hall. On 19 January 1925, he was appointed president of the Muslim Literary Society established in Dhaka. Returning home from Europe in 1928 with a PhD, he joined Dhaka University as a lecturer in Bangla and Sanskrit and as a resident teacher at Salimullah Muslim Hall. In 1934 he was promoted to reader. In the same year he was appointed principal of the Sanskrit and Bangla department and later in 1937 he was appointed principal of the independent Bangla department. On 30 June 1944, he retired from the Bangla Department of Dhaka University as Reader and Principal. After his retirement, he was the principal of Bogra Azizul Haq College. In 1948, he joined the University of Dhaka as an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Bangla and at the same time served as the Head of the Department and Dean of the Faculty of Arts for six years. Muhammad Shahidullah was invited to join the Arts Department of Rajshahi University to develop Bangla literature and Bangla language. He retired from this university after serving till 1958. He was a part-time professor of French in the Department of Law and International Relations at the University of Dhaka. Salimullah also served as the Acting President of the Muslim Hall and Fazlul Haq Hall as the Acting Secretary of the Islamic Encyclopedia Project of the Bangla Academy from 1961 to 1964. The Bengali calendar we see today is a modern and scientific form created under his leadership. Earlier, some Bengali months could have been 32 days. He was appointed Professor Emeritus of Dhaka University in 1967. Apart from teaching, he was the editor of the Urdu Dictionary Project of the Urdu Development Agency in Karachi, the Bangla Academy in Dhaka`s `Ideal Dictionary Project for the East Pakistan Language` and the `Islamic Encyclopedia Project`. He was a member of the Commission at the Islamic University, a member of the Executive Committee of the Islamic Academy, President of the Date Formatting Committee of the Bangla Register of the Bangla Academy, and a permanent chairman of the Adamji Sahitya Puraskar and Dawood Sahitya Puraskar Committees. He was also the secretary of the Bengal Muslim Literary Society and presided over various important meetings and conventions. He represented UNESCO at the Seminar on Traditional Culture in Southeast Asia in Madras and was nominated its chairman.

In July 1947, the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh University, Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed, recommended that Urdu be made the state language of Pakistan. Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah was the first to write in protest.