Former Deputy Chief of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Professor Khurshid Ahmad passed away in Leicester, United Kingdom, on Sunday. He was 93.
Professor Khurshid Ahmad was born on 23 March 1932 in Delhi. He completed his graduation with a focus on legal studies and obtained master's degrees in Economics and Islamic Studies from the University of Karachi.
The University of Karachi later conferred upon him an honorary degree in Education for his outstanding contributions in the academic domain.
Ahmad became a member of Islami Jamiat Talaba Pakistan in 1949 and was elected its central president in 1953. In 1956, he formally joined Jamaat-e-Islami.
Professor Ahmad received his honorary PhD in Economics from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, where he specialised in Islamic economics.
He served as a federal minister for planning and development in 1978. He also held the position of Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of Pakistan. He was elected to the Senate of Pakistan in 1985, 1997, and 2002. He chaired the Senate’s Standing Committee on Economic and Planning Affairs.
Professor Ahmad authored seventy books in both English and Urdu.
He played a key advisory role during the Islamisation efforts in Pakistan under the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s.
His intellectual and public service contributions earned him the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest civil award, in 2011, and the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam in 1990.
