KARACHI, Jan 31: Senate Chairman Farooq H. Naek said here on Monday that giving the status of federal university to the Sindh Madressatul Islam (SMI) College would be a befitting tribute to its founder Khan Bahadur Hassanally Effendi who played a vital role in spreading education in Sindh.He was speaking as a chief guest at the launching ceremony of the book “Hassanally Effendi: the Founder of Sindh Madressatul Islam” held at a local hotel.
Author of the book and principal of the SMI Dr Muhammad Ali Shaikh and adviser to the Sindh governor Yousuf Jamal Khan also spoke on the occasion.
The book’s foreword is written by President Asif Ali Zardari while it contains details of Hassanally Effendi’s early life, his services for Muslims, interaction with Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Justice Ameer Ali of Calcutta and the Quaid-i-Azam’s student life at the Sindh Madressatul Islam.
Besides, the book also carries colourful photographs of the Sindh Madressatul Islam’s magnificent and historical building, relics and personal belongings of Hassanally Effendi which are part of the SMI Jinnah Museum.
The book is designed by Ms Shaista M. Ali and Abdullah Thebo.
Recalling the great service rendered by Hassanally Effendi in the field of education, the senate chief said that Effendi would always be remembered for bringing about socio-political changes in Sindh by establishing the Sindh Madressatul Islam.
He said that Effendi made concerted efforts to spread education and inculcate intellectual thinking into young minds of Sindh because he knew that no nation could prosper and make progress without acquiring modern education and knowledge.
Describing him as a great reformer, Mr Naek said that it would be a real tribute to Effendi once the SMI was turned into a university.
He said that he would shortly take up the issue with both the federal and the Sindh education ministers.
In his welcome address, author of the book Dr Muhammad Ali Shaikh said that although a sub-committee of the federal committee which had been assigned the task of discussing the proposal of converting the SMI into a federal university recently suggested that the SMIbe made a federal university with its campuses in all the provinces, the alma matter of the Quaid-i-Azam still awaited the required charter.
Highlighting the problems being faced by the SMI, Dr Shaikh said that its affairs had started deteriorating after the death of Quaid-i-Azam when it was given under the control of a non-government organisation as it was during this period that not only a large number of shops were constructed on its premises, but the school’s wooden roof of Burma teak was also removed.
The SMI was, however, given under the control of the federal government in 1974 by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto whose father Shahnawaz Bhutto had also studied there, he said.
Paying glowing tributes to Effendi, Yousuf Jamal, who himself had studied at the SMI, said that Effendi knew that education was must for creating political awakening and he set up the SMI which played a significant role in spreading education in every nook and cranny of Sindh.
He deplored that although education was recognised as an investment into the human resource development, Pakistan was lagging behind in this sphere as its current literacy rate was just 56 per cent while according to the millennium development goals it should be 85pc by 2015.