THIS is to thank Dawn for the timely coverage and excellent layout of the news about the death of Dr Mohammad Sabir, my father, under the heading 'Turkologist Dr Sabir passes away' (Nov 11).
While the obituary let readers know details about the life and work of a great scholar, three points about the write-up need to be corrected the name of the book he wrote in Urdu was Turkan Usmani and not TurkmanUsmani as inadvertently printed. The Turkish president he worked for as translator during his visit to Pakistan in 1962 was Cemal Gursel and not Kenan Evren. President Evren, a friend of Pakistan's, visited this country in the Eighties.
Dr Sabir edited and published the Turk divan of Bairam Khan, Emperor Babur's commander and Akbar the Great's mentor. As far as the founder of the Mughal Empire is concerned, my father worked extensively on his poetry and published various articles on his Turkish poetry in Qaumi Zabaan magazine, and in Turkish which were published in Turkey and Uzbekistan.
I am in the process of gathering material, especially his articles in Turkish and Uzbek languages. Once they are published it will give us a full range of his work as a Turkologist. Incidentally, all major newspapers in Turkey carried the news of his death and biography in detail. One can see the comments which are still pouring in on the net.
Once again I thank the newspaper for the in - depth coverage of a man who indeed was Pakistan's greatest Turkologist.
TUGHRIL SABIR
Karachi
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