KARACHI, Feb 7: Eminent jurist Khalid Ishaq died here on Saturday after a prolonged illness. He was 77. He is survived by two sons and two daughters.

The Nimaz-i-Janaza of the late Mr Ishaq will be offered at Ghafooria Masjid in Soldier Bazaar on Sunday. He will be buried in the PECHS graveyard.

He was on dialysis and died of renal failure at a local hospital. The legal community has described his death as "a loss that will be felt for long".

Born on Aug 16, 1926, he graduated with a degree in Arabic from DJ College in 1945. He bagged first position in MA examinations given by the Bombay University. Since Islam was his inspiration, his chief interest lay in Persian and Arabic.

Later, he did his LLB, his institution being the SC Shahani Law College. He started legal practice in 1948. Prepared to work diligently he was soon noticed by the people who mattered.

In 1958, when he was only 32 years of age, he was appointed Additional Advocate General of the then West Pakistan. Five years later, he was promoted as Advocate General.

In 1964, Mr Ishaq decided to step down from that position and establish his own practice. He went on to practice civil law in the High Court of Sindh and the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He became president of the High Court Bar Association in 1965.

In 1965, he also became the project director of the Islamic Research Institute. He was a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology from 1969 to 1972, and again from 1977 to 1980.

He taught at the Sindh University from 1976 to 1977 as a professor of Seerut-un-Nabi. He also appeared in scores of television programmes which dealt with legal and religious problems.

Mr Ishaq had arguably the largest collection of commentaries on the Holy Quran. His private library until 1999 boasted of 175,000 volumes, making him the proud owner of one of the biggest collection of books in Pakistan.

In recent years many institutions had requested him to donate his collection but he simply refused to part with his books.

The legal community has termed his death a great loss.