Farewell to Mushtaqur Rahman An AMSS Pioneer

Abstract

Professor Mushtaqur Rahman, a renowned Muslim geographer, who was
born on July 1,1933 in Agra (India), died of cardiac arrest at Des Moines,
Iowa (USA), on November 5, 1999. He had heart problems for several
years that had slowed down his academic and social service activities but
never deterred him from performing them.
In 1947, he migrated to Pakistan, a country he loved dearly and lived to
serve throughout his life. Still, his contributions went beyond it in a number
of ways. Having done his B.A. (1953) and M.A. (1955) from the
University of Karachi, he taught at Islamiah College, Karachi, and Sindh
University, Hyderabad for a few years. He earned his Ph.D. degree in
Cultural Geography, from Louisiana State University in 1960, and did
postdoctoral research at the University of Geisen, Germany in 1966-67. He
served in the Department of Geography, University of Karachi, Pakistan
from 1963 to 1969. He was appointed Professor of Geography in the
Department of Anthropology, Iowa State University (ISU), Ames, Iowa.
He served ISU till his retirement in May 1998.
Dr.. Rahman’s contribution to the field of Cultural Geography of South
Asia has been recognized worldwide. In Professor Rahman was combined
an activist and quiet researcher. He was a founding member of the Old
Students’ Association of Karachi University (OSAKU), which he served in
various capacities. Besides carrying out advisory duties for the Muslim
Students Association at ISU, he organized for its students and faculty many
study tours of Pakistan and brought a number of Pakistani scholars to Iowa
State.
His main scholarly contributions are through his very long, sincere, dedicated
service to the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) and
through his many worthy publications in the field of political and cultural
geography. Not only did he serve AMSS as its vice president with one of
its founders, Dr. AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, but he was also elected its ...