HYDERABAD, April 6: The scholar is dead. Long live scholarship.
Dr Nabi Bakhsh Khan Baloch, the legendary research scholar, educationist and historian, died in a hospital in Latifabad on Wednesday. He was 94. He left behind five sons and three daughters, besides thousands of students and admirers, to mourn his death.
He had suffered a stroke at the residence of his son-in-law in Muslim Housing Society, Qasimabad, and was rushed to Hilal-i-Ahmer Hospital.
Dr Baloch was laid to rest near the grave of Allama I.I. Kazi at the Sindh University campus in Jamshoro amid tears and sobs.
His funeral was attended by hundreds of people, including a galaxy of scholars. His Namaz-i-Janaza was offered in the Sindhi Muslim Housing Society’s park and attended by a large number of people, including Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq, Culture Minister Sassui Palejo, Dr Ghulam Ali Allana, Ibrahim Joyo, Hameed Akhund, Dr Nawaz Shauq, Badar Abro and Imdad Hussaini.
A pall of gloom hung over Sindh as the news of his death spread through the province.
Dr Baloch was a giant, an icon and a literary colossus. He had devoted his life to research and was a voracious reader and a prolific writer.
He was the author and editor of about 150 books and every book he wrote is considered a magnum opus. However, he himself was proud of his 10 volumes on the life and poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.
His other monumental works were 46 volumes on folk literature and several volumes of Sindhi language dictionary.
The great scholar had command over Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English and he wrote books in all these languages.
Dr Hameeda Khuhro calls him an encyclopaedia of Sindh and his Sindhi dictionary as a seminal work on the language.
Dr Baloch was born in the sleepy village of Jafar Khan Leghari, Sanghar district. He went to Aligarh Muslim University and did his masters with first class first position and LLB with first class ranking.
Due to his first position in MA, he got scholarship from the British government of India for higher studies at the Colombia University and did his masters and doctorate in education during 1946-49.
He received an offer for employment in the UNO but refused as he was eager to return home.
In 1950, Dr Baloch got a job in the information department and then in the foreign service, but at the invitation of Allama Kazi joined the Sindh University as its first professor and established the department of education, the first ever in Pakistan.
Along with Allama Kazi, he can rightly be termed the builder of the Sindh University. Later he became its vice-chancellor and served in this capacity from 1973 to 1976.
Afterwards, he was posted as the secretary of the ministry of culture, archaeology, sports and tourism where he worked from 1977 to 1979. In July 1979, he joined the National Institute for Research in History and Culture.
He was chosen as the founder vice-chancellor of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. The 15th Century celebrations were launched in 1983 and he became an adviser to the Hijra Council. He remained there for seven years and worked on his 100 Great Islamic Books project.
