Maulana Abdul Qadir was born on June 14, 1905 in the small village, Pabini in Swabi district and he did his matriculation, intermediate and graduation from Islamia College Peshawar in 1927. He went to Aligarh University in 1928 and qualified masters in English, Arabic, LLB and BT in 1929, 1930, 1931 and 1932, respectively. He remained president of students union at the university and also used to edit the university’s literary magazine.
In 1942, he began editing Pashto magazine Nun Paroon published from Delhi by the foreign ministry. Later, Pitras Bokhari, the then director general (DG) of All India Radio, appointed him in-charge of Pashto section for Middle East.
After partition, the Maulana was made vice counsel and then Pakistan ambassador in Kabul in the early 50s. He founded Pashto Academy in 1955 and Department of Pashto in 1961. He collected thousands of valuable books and rare manuscripts on the origin, history and traditions of Pakhtuns from Rampur (India), British India Office library and other sources.
He also discovered a rare manuscript of Khairul Bayan, the first prose book in Pashto from Tubengen University Library, Germany. Two of his books including a collection of letters and another containing research papers were published posthumously. His [Da Quran Tafseer] explication of the Holy Quran in Pashto is still unpublished. He passed away on October 22, 1969 at Rajshahi in Dhaka during a seminar and was laid to rest at Peshawar University graveyard, adjacent to his beloved Pashto Academy.
Please Wait...