Syed Nomanul Haq, Ph.D.

Visiting Distinguished Professor,
Comparative Humanities

School Of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

nomanul.haq@ahss.habib.edu.pk

Biography

Dr. Syed Nomanul Haq began his university education as a student of applied sciences at the University of Hull in England, specializing in Electronics. As a fresh engineer he worked for the famous Dutch company Philips, but this phase of his professional life lasted for a brief period of merely one year. Finding his niche in the humanities, particularly in intellectual history, philosophy, and cultural studies, he embarked on a Master’s program in the field of the history and philosophy of science at University College London (UCL). During his graduate work in London, he enrolled also at the School of Oriental and African Studies to take preparatory courses in classical Arabic and Persian, acquiring at the same time elementary French and German.

While studying at UCL, and for some years after earning his Master’s degree in 1979-80, Dr. Haq worked as a young broadcaster-journalist for the Urdu Service of the BBC, producing various programs on current affairs and culture, and also reading the news after translating official bulletins from English into Urdu. During this time he also produced with the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin a five-part BBC series on classical Indian-Western music.

But Dr. Haq’s scholarly career began in earnest when as a UCL Ph.D. student he was selected to study as a transfer student at Harvard University; at Harvard, he was trained for many years at two departments—Department of the History of Science and of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. His doctoral work was carried out almost entirely at these departments, being supervised by scholars of the stature of the logician W. V. O. Quine, Arabic philologist Wolfhart Heinrichs, and historian A. I. Sabra. Also, he served in the research teams of the biologist E. O. Wilson and Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow.

After earning his UCL doctorate in the wider field of Graeco-Arabic intellectual and cultural history, Dr. Haq was appointed as Research Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and taught both at Harvard and at Tufts University. Then, in 1990, he won a grant from the American Philosophy of Science Association to work on his first book, Names, Natures, and Things. This book which is a critical study of an Arabic alchemical text—was published in 1994 by Kluwer of the Netherlands in the classic Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science series. Among other scholars, this book was reviewed also by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in the prestigious journal Isis, and has a preface written by David Pingree of Brown University.
Later in 1994 Dr. Haq was appointed at Brown, another Ivy League University, at the standing rank of Assistant Professor—his first US faculty appointment. He continued his research and teaching for several years at Brown, evaluated by his students to be the best teacher in the entire Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 1996, he accepted an assistant professorship at Rutgers University and then moved to the University of Pennsylvania as a standing faculty member in the Department of the History of Art. In 2004, he received an award from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies to serve as Project Director of a private library survey project that he had himself proposed. The data of this Pakistan-wide survey are available on the Digital Library for International Research of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.

In 2006, Dr. Haq joined the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of LUMS. As a senior professor there, he played a fundamental role in developing this school which during his almost decade-long service grew from a small service unit into a major feature of the academic landscape of LUMS. In early 2013, Dr. Haq was appointed Professor of the Social Sciences and Liberal Arts and Advisor at IBA Karachi.

The list of Dr. Haq’s academic work and his publications is very large. Some 41 book chapters, 73 journal papers and general articles, and 13 singly-authored or edited books. His writings have been published by Harvard University Press, I. B. Tauris, Springer, Oxford University Press in Oxford, Cambridge University Press, and the like. As for his papers, they have been carried by several international learned periodicals including ISI-indexed journals such as Daedalus, Nature, and Isis.

Dr. Haq has written numerous articles for the general public, including op-ed articles for the New York Times, and the former International Herald Tribune, and for several years he has been writing commissioned articles on global literature and culture in Dawn. He was Chief Editor of the LUMS Urdu periodical Bunyad, and sits on the editorial boards of many international journals—among these are the Journal of South Asian Intellectual History of Netherland’s Brill and the Critical Muslim of London’s Hurst Publications. He serves as General Editor of the series Studies in Islamic Philosophy of Oxford University Press, one volume of which received the coveted Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques Award.

Notable among many grants and awards Dr. Haq has received is the Henry Luce Foundation collective award, a three-year award which concluded with three volumes of studies published by State University of New York Press. The record of Dr. Haq’s keynote and plenary addresses at international forums is also extensive—a record that includes forums such as the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; Berkeley Graduate Theological Union; and United Nations University, Barcelona.

Publications – Books (In Reverse Chronological Order)

• Names, Natures, and Things: The Alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān and his Kitāb al-Ahjār (Book of Stones), with a Foreword by David E. Pingree. Dordrecht/London/ Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994 (Cloth). xx + 284 pages. Paperback Edition, 1995.
• With Ted Peters and Muzaffar Iqbal, God, Life, and the Cosmos: Theistic Perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. {2a. Persian tr. Jawwad Qasimi. Falsafa-e ‘Ilm-o-Din dar Islam wa Masihiyyat. Mashhad: Islamic Research Foundation, 2014.}
• Harris Khalique, Select Verses, with an Analytical Introduction and Annotations. In Urdu.
• Karachi: Daniyal, 2006.
• A Critical Edition of Abdur Rahman Bijnauri’s Mahāsin-e Kalām-e Ghālib (Virtuosity of Ghalib), with Annotations, Critical Apparatus, and Indices. In Urdu. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Mushfiq Khwaja: Idāra, Fard, Nābigha (Mushfiq Khwaja: An Institution, an Individual, a Genius). Anthology in Urdu. Karachi: Anjuman Taraqqi-e Urdu, 2016.
• Kulliyat-e Faiz: A Critical Edition of the Complete Poetic Works of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, with Critical Apparatus, Introduction, and Annotations. In Urdu. Lahore: Karvan Publications/Faiz Foundation. In press.

As General Editor of Oxford University Press Series Studies in Islamic Philosophy

• Sherman Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance: Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī’s Faysal al-Tafriqa. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2002.
• Ebrahim Moosa. Ghazālī and the Poetics of Imagination. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Charles Butterworth. Alfarabi, the Political Writings. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Shahab Ahmed and Yossi Rapoport. Ibn Taymiyya and His Times. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010. (Multiple Paperback Editions, 2012-16).
• Asad Ahmed. Avicenna’s Deliverance: Logic. Introduction by Tony Street. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Peter Adamson and Peter Pormann. The Philosophical Works of al-Kindi. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012. [1]

Independent Volume

• Sajida Alvi. Indo-Islamic Civilization: Perspectives on Early Modern History and Religion. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Publications – Book Chapters

• “On the Poetic Transference” in Iftikhar Arif, The Twelfth Man, Brenda Walker tr. Karachi: Daniyal, 2018.
• “Foreword” in David Matthews, Iqbal: A Selection of his Urdu and Persian Works (Translated into English). Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• “Al-Farabi” in Medieval Philosophy of Religion, G. Oppy and N. Trakakis eds. Durham: Acumen, 2013. (See item 10 below).
• “Introduction” in Talha Jalal. Memoirs of the Bādshāhī Mosque. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• “Across Semantic Turfs: A Case for Broader Education” in Management of Urolithiasis: Rational Deployment of Technology, J. Talati, H. Tiselius, D. Albala, and Z. Ye eds. Warrington, PA: Springer-Verlag, 2012.
• “Occult Sciences and Medicine” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 4, Michael Cook ed.-in-chief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.[2]
• “Philosophy and Science since 1800” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 6, Michael Cook ed.-in-chief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• “Science in Islam” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 4 vols. R. Bjork ed.-in-chief. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• “Myth 4: The Myth that Medieval Islamic Culture was Inhospitable to Rational Sciences” in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, Ron Numbers ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
• “Hamārē Maulānā” in Yeh Khāna-e Āb-o-Gil: Verse Rendering of Select Ghazals of Rumi, Fahmida Riaz tr. In Urdu. Karachi: Shahrezad Publications, 2009.
• “al-Farābī,” in N. Trakakis ed. History of Philosophy of Religion, 5 vols. London: Acumen,“Refiner’s Fire: Some Reflections on Neville, Postmodernism, and the Tends in Discourses on Islam” in P. Heltzel and A. Yong eds. Theology in a Global Context:
  Essays in Honor of Robert Neville. New York/London: Continuum, T & T Clark International, 2004.
• “Islam and Ecology: Toward Retrieval and Reconstruction” in Islam and Ecology,
  R.C. Foltz, F. M. Denny, and A. Baharuddin eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. (Rep. of my Daedalus paper listed under “Journal Articles” below).
• “Astrolabe” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford
  University Press, 2003.
• “Bayt al-Hikma” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  “Bīmāristān” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “Hakim Muhammad Said” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “ ‘Ilm al-Hay’ah” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “ ‘Ilm al-Handasa” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “ ‘Ilm al-Hisāb” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “ ‘Ilm al-Lugha” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “ ‘Ilm al- Tabī‘a” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “al-Khwarizmī” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, J. L. Esposito ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• “Kitāb al-Ahjār” (Book of Stones) [of Jābir ibn Hayyān], in An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Seyyed H. Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi eds., Vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.(Rep. of part of my book, Names, Natures, and Things, listed under “Books” above).
• Foreword to Valerie Gonzales, Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architecture. London: I. B. Tauris; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.
• “Islam” in Blackwell Companion to Environmental Philosophy, D. Jamieson ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
• “The Taxonomy of Truth in the Islamic Religious Doctrine and Tradition” in Religious Truth. Robert C. Neville ed. with a foreword by Jonathan Z. Smith. New York: SUNY, 2000.
• “Ultimate Reality: Islam” in Ultimate Realities, Robert C. Neville ed. with a foreword by Tu Weiming. New York: SUNY, 2000.
• “The Human Condition in Islam: Sharī‘a and Obligation” in The Human Condition, Robert Neville ed. with a foreword by Peter L. Berger. New York: SUNY, 2000.
• “Tabī‘a,” The Encyclopedia of Islam. New Edition, E. Bosworth et al. eds. Vol. X. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998 ––. (Also published in French translation), s. v., 25-28.
• “Introduction” (Urdu) in Ibn Mansūr al-Hallāj, Dīwān, Muzaffar Iqbal, tr. In Urdu. Karachi: Daniyal, 1997, 1-12.
• “Jābir ibn Hayyān,” Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non- Western Cultures, H. Selin ed. Boston/Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997, 459-460.
• “The Indian and Persian Background to Islamic Philosophy” in Routledge History of Islamic Philosophy, 2 Vols., O. Leaman and S. H. Nasr eds. London: Routledge, 1996, 52-70. Repr. 1997, 1999. Paperback 2001. Rep. 2003.
• “Reflections on the Pedagogical Challenges of Introductory Courses on Islam,” in Counterpoints: Issues in Teaching Religious Studies, M. Hadley and M. Unno eds. Providence: Dept of Religious Studies, Brown University, 1995, 39-46.
• “Divination” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, J. L. Esposito Ed.-in-Chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, s. v., 380-381.
• “Astrology” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. 1. L. Esposito Ed.-in-Chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, s. v., 143-145.
• “Alchemy” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, J. L. Esposito Ed.-in-Chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, s. v., 67-69.
• “Astronomy” The Oxford Encyclopedia o/the Modern Islamic World. J. L.Esposito Ed.-in-Chief. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, s. v., 145-148.
• “Rukn,” The Encylopaedia of Islam. New Edition. C. E. Bosworth et al. eds., Vol. IX. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994 (also published in French translation), 596-597.
• “Cut Them and They Shall Bleed,” in The Rushdie File. L. Appignansi and S. Maitland eds. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Rep. in One World. Many Cultures. S. Hirchberg ed. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
• “Alchemy in the Islamic World,” Cambridge University Encyclopedia of the Middle East and North Africa, T. Mostyn and A. Hourani eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University
  Press, 1988, s. v., 267-269.

Publications – Papers In Periodicals Including Isi-Indexed Journals (Thomson Reuters Master Journal List)

• “Narratives and Legacy: the Humanities Crisis in Pakistan,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2017): 162-170.
• “River in the Drop: Taking Stock of the Progressive Writers’ Movement,” Herald, Vol. 50, No. 5 (May, 2017): 94-98.
• “The Best of All Patrons?” Critical Muslim, Vol. 21 No. 1 (2017): 34-44.
•  “The Lost Verse: Why is Iqbal Going out of Fashion?” Herald, Vol. 49, No. 12 (December, 2016): 126-130. [4a. “Kalam-e Gumgashta” M. Mahdi tr. (Urdu), Zau, (November, 2017): 124-133).]
• “Gujarati Sandals in Baghdad: Decolonising History,” Herald, Vol. 49, No. 11 (November, 2016): 114-120.
• “Educational Horizons of Contemporary Pakistan,” Islam and Civilizational Renewal, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2013): 126-133.
• “The Kitāb al-Tawāsīn of Hallāj, II,” (Versification and Versified Urdu Translation from Arabic), Dunyā Zād, Vol. 34 (2012): 50-77.
• “The Kitāb al-Tawāsīn of Hallāj, I,” (Versification and Versified Urdu Translation from Arabic), Dunyā Zād, Vol. 30 (2011): 54-92. 9. “Iqbal and Classical Muslim Thinkers,” Iqbal Review, Vol. 50, No. 2/4 (209-11): 97-111.10. “Science in Medieval Islamic Civilization,” Islam and Science, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter 2009).
• “Dancing with Rumi,” Annual of Urdu Studies, No. 22 (2007).
• “Endnotes: Science, Scientism, and the Liberal Arts,” Islam and Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, (2003): 273-277.
•  “Greek Alchemy or Shi‘ī Metaphysics? A Preliminary Statement Concerning Jābir ibn Hayyān’s Zāhir and Bātin.” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn/Winter 2002): 19-32.
• “Islam and Ecology: Toward Retrieval and Reconstruction,” Daedalus, Vol. 130, No.4 (Fall 2001): 141-177.
• “At an Analytical Distance: Revisiting the Question of Islam and Violence,” Dialog, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2001): 302-306.
• “Through the Magnificence of God,” Helix, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1997): 12-19.
• “Western Approaches to the Scientific Legacy of Islam: From Appropriation to Evaluation,” Islamic Thought, Vol. 7, No.1 (1996): 23-35.
• Aristoteles Arabus: A Hitherto Unknown Medieval Arabic Translation of Aristotle’s Discourse on Quality,” Harvard Mid. East and Isl. Rev., Vol. 1, No.1 (1994): 150 167.
• “Locke’s Essay, Newton’s Opticks, and Gay’s Dissertation in David Hartley’s Associationist Crucible,” University Studies, Vol. 1, No.1 (1982): 42-56.
• “Iqbal-Rothenstein Correspondence: Discovery of the Text,” (Urdu) Qaumī Zabān, No. 35 (1991): 15-21. Reviews/Review Essays
• Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 13, No.1 (2002): 54-58. Sarah Stroumsa. Freethinkers of Medieval Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999.
• Nature, Vol. 400 (26 August 1999): 830-831. Stephen Jay Gould. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Library of Contemporary Thought, The Ballantine Publ. Group, 1999.
• Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 119, No. 2(1999): 323-326. F. J. and Sally P. Ragep eds. Tradition, Transmission, Transformation. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
• Nature, Vol. 381, No. 6577 (May 1996): 35-36. D. Kumar. Science and the Raj, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Harvard Review, No.8 (Spring 1995): 84-85. Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Dīwān of Hāfiz. Ashland, Oregon: White Cloud Press,
• Isis, Vol. 83, No.1 (1992): 120-121. Y. Marquet. La philosophie des alchimistes et l’alchimie des philosophes: Jabir ibn Hayyān et les “Frères de la Pureté.” Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1988.
• American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 9, No.2 (1992): 266-267. M. Marmura ed. Islamic Theology and Philosophy: Essays in Honor of George Hourani. New York:
  SUNY Press, 1984.
• Harvard Review, No. 11/12 (Fall 1989): 7-8. Salman Rushdie. The Satanic Verses. New York: Viking, 1989.

Additional Research-Based General Publications Related To Creative Literature And History Of Ideas In World Culture

• “Memon’s Logic of Caprice.” Dawn Books and Authors, July 01, 2018.
• “Losing Iqbal.” Dawn Books and Authors, April 22, 2018.
• “The Ironies of Padmavat.” Dawn Books and Authors, February 18, 2018.
• “Goethe’s ‘Mahomets Gesang’.” Dawn Books and Authors, December 10, 2017.
• “Who is this Fazl-i-Haqq.” Dawn Books and Authors, October 15, 2017.
• “Ghalib’s Pretty Wrongs.” Dawn Books and Authors, July 30, 2017.
• “Peace! … This until the Break of Dawn.” Dawn Books and Authors, June 11, 2017.
• “Iqbal’s Polarised Legacy.” Dawn Books and Authors, April 25, 2017.
• “Reading Iftikhar Arif in Persian.” Dawn Books and Authors, February 19, 2017.
• “Tā Sīn of Understanding, Ibn Mansūr Hallāj.” Dawn Books and Authors, September 18, 2016.
• “What is this Aljamiado of Spain? On the Rhythms of World Literary Cultures.” Dawn Books and Authors, July 24, 2016.
• “The Chimes of Hayy ibn Yaqzān: From the Divine Comedy to Robinson Crusoe and Onward … On the Cross-Cultural Vicissitudes of an Arabic Work of Fiction.” Dawn Books and Authors, May 25, 2016.
• “Don Quixote: Cervantes’s ‘Arabic’ Tale: On the Andalusian Arabo-Muslim Milieu of the “World’s Greatest Novel.” Dawn Books and Authors, April 3, 2016.
• “Continuous Poetic Creation: On Urdu Poetry’s Sport of Visual Metaphors.” Dawn Books and Authors, January 31, 2016.
• “Tā Sīn of Shining Lamp, Ibn Mansūr Hallāj.” Dawn Books and Authors, January 10, 2016.
• “Breaking with Broken Metres: On the Music of Urdu Poetry.” Dawn Books and Authors, December 6, 2015.
• “Colour, Stone, and the Word: On the Equivalence of Poetry and the Visual Arts.” Dawn Books and Authors, October 18, 2015.
• “ ‘O Lahore! How do you fare without me?’ On Punjab’s Mas‘ūd and Seville’s Mu‘tamid.” Dawn Books and Authors, August 30, 2015.
• “Alternating between flower-clad beauties and “Hu”: Whiter went Sirajuddin Zafar?” Dawn Books and Authors, June 14, 2015.
• “Madrasas Are Not the Only Parallel System.” The Express Tribune, April 14, 2015.
• “From the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Tablets of Jaun Elia.” Dawn Books and Authors, March 29, 2015.
• “Birds, Trees, Stained Gusts—Who is Singing?” Dawn Books and Authors, December 28, 2014. [On the Urdu poet Majeed Amjad].
• “In the Court of the Jinn: Animals vs. Humans.” Dawn Books and Authors, December 14, 2014. [A Fable in the Rasā’il of the Brethren of Purity Studied with Reference to the Sanskrit animal tale Panchatantra and Iqbal’s “A Cow and a Goat”].
• “The Thousand Faces of Mirage: Back to Noon Meem Rashid.” Dawn Books and Authors, October 12, 2014.
• “What is it that Rattles?: On the Autonomy of Ideas.” Dawn Books and Authors, August 24, 2014. [A Foucauldian Analysis of Arabic-Romance Transmission of Literary Themes and Forms].
• “Young man, poetry has saved us!” Dawn Books and Authors, June 22, 2014. [On the Literary Views of a Veteran Urdu Scholar, Ashiq Husain Batalvi]
• “Even the Ashes Blown Away.” The Express Tribune, April 24, 2014. [Surveying the State of the Humanities in Pakistan].
• “In the Chamber of Being: Humanising Iqbal.” Dawn Books and Authors, April 20, 2014.
• “On the Romance of the Metaphorical with the Real: Recalling Faiz’s Poetic Transmutations.” Dawn Books and Authors, February 9, 2014.
• “ “The Horribly Howling” and “The Victor”: Into the Web of Kalila wa Dimna.” Dawn Books and Authors, December 15, 2013.
• “Whither Portraiture? The Poetic Resilience of Sarāpā.” Dawn Books and Authors, September 8, 2013.
• “On the Virtues of Vices: The Counter-Logics of Poetry.” Dawn Books and Authors, July 7, 2013.
• “Ah, the Joys of Back-Formations: the Social Sciences, Bollywood, and Urdu,” Dawn Books and Authors, May 12, 2013
• “From the Guadalquivir to the Edge of Indus: City as Reality, City as Imagination,” Dawn Books and Authors, March 10, 2013.
• “At Ghalib’s Threshold, Again,” Dawn Books and Authors, January 6, 2013.
• “Looking for Miraji …” Dawn Books and Authors, November 4, 2012.
• “History, Poetry, and Pragmatics,” Dawn Books and Authors, October 21, 2012.
• “ ‘O Lord, Return My Prostrations!’: On the Poetics of Manto,” Cover Story, Dawn Books and Authors, August 5, 2012.
• “Chain, Lyre, Silk: Recasting Faiz Ahmad Faiz,” Dawn, February 14, 2011.
• “Recovering Iqbal” Dawn, August 24, 2008.
• “Dancing with Rumi,” Dawn, March 4, 2007.
• “Science vs. Scientism: the Question of Cultural Space,” Dawn, July 5, 2005.
• “Whither Imagination?” The News International, August 31, 2000.
• “Salman Rushdie, Blame Yourself!” Op-ed piece, The New York Times, February 23, Also in The International Herald Tribune. February 24, 1989.
• “Maulana Muntakhabul Haq: A Cursory Appraisal,” The Muslim, June 1988. [On a Formidable Scholar of the Khayrabadi School of Logic]
•  This work received the Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques award. See below under “Prizes.”
•  This six-volume work received the Waldo Leland Prize of the American Historical Association. See under “Prizes” below.