Muhammad Ali Siddiqui

Muhammad Ali Siddiqui was a noted scholar and literary critic from Pakistan.

He was born on March 7, 1938 in Amroha, India, and brought up in Karachi. He died on January 9, 2013 at Karachi, Pakistan. He was able to use English, French, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, Seraiki and Urdu. He did his D.Litt in Pakistan Studies in 2003 after doing his Ph.D in the same subject in 1992. He is the first PhD and D.Litt in Pakistan Studies in Pakistan.

He was a member of many national and international organizations such as: Pakistan Writers Guild, Pakistan, Association Des Litteraire Critiques International, Paris, European Union of Writers and Scientist, Rome, International Association of Literary Critics (AILC), Stavanger, Norway, Majlis-i-Farough-i-Urdu Adab, Doha, Qatar.

Ali Siddiqui was a prominent Urdu critic. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Institute of Business and Technology (Biztek), Karachi. He also served as Dean Faculty of Education & Social Sciences at Hamdard University, Karachi for six years. He taught at Karachi University for a number of years. He served as the Director of Quaid-e-Azam Academy for six years.

Ali Siddiqui has penned more than 100 research articles. He has 16 books to his credit, two of them Tawazum and Croce ki Sarguzash, were adjudged as the Best Books of the Years 1976 and 1979 respectively.

He has been awarded the Presidential Award of Pride of Performance for his contribution to literature in 2003. He was selected as CASA (Canadian Association of South Asian Studies) Scholar of the year 1984, the second Pakistani to get this honor.

He has delivered lectures in many overseas universities such as the School of Oriental & American Studies London University, Carlton University, Canada, the University of Toronto, Canada, Oslo University, Norway.

His importance as a critic has been applanded by critics of Urdu like Majnoon Gorakpuri, Dr. Akthar Husain Raipuri, Prof. Mumtaz Husain, Prof. Mujtaba Husain, Dr. Ali Jawwad Zaidi, Dr. Wazir Agha etc. Among creative writers Faiz Ahmed Faiz regarded him as the only critic from Pakistan the others being Dr. Narang, Dr. Zoe Ansari & Dr. Qamar Rais from India.

Journalist Khalid Ahmed wrote:

Most people think Muzaffar Ali Syed was the most learned man in Pakistan. Among the living, Muhammad Ali Siddiqui or Ariel of Dawn is undoubtedly the most learned man. He holds his own compared with the late Syed who created waves more often by being controversial. Not that Siddiqui is non-controversial. His assessments of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Allama Iqbal have been heretical but have escaped attention because his scholarship is unassailable and we generally don’t like reading controversial things if they are deeply scholarly. If you can’t face a critic, ignore him.”