Mirza A. Beg
Alabama

Dear friends from the Aligarian community:

Usmani saheb has perceptively included the name of Dr. Mohammad Shafi in his Aligarians series. His passing away is a very sad occasion as such occasions are. We know that our stay in this temporal realm is limited and by the time we get into seventies, the door to the hereafter is a little closer and a bit ajar.

Shafi sahib crossed to the other side, but did not leave a vacuum in the usual sense of the word. He left hundreds of grateful students to carry on his legacy in his chosen discipline of geography as well as many others whom he touched as dean and Pro Vice Chancellor. He has left behind a body of work that would carry forward the ideas and knowledge he left behind to carry on his name and legacy.

I was fortunate enough to have known him and benefited from his advice when I joined AMU as a youngster leaving a sheltered life in 1959. I had only heard of him from his older brother and mentor Sunhan Ali Saheb. Subhan Saheb, as he was known, was my teacher of mathematics and geography in high school. I will take this opportunity, to say a few words about Subhan Saheb, valued elder brother and mentor of Shafi Saheb. I know Shafi sahib would have appreciated it.

He talked of Shafi Saheb with such love and took such pride, in his accomplishments. All of us have some teachers whom we can only never repay, but we can not even praise them enough. Subhan Saheb was one of those rare teachers. Though I was not a student of Shafi Saheb, and I left Aligarh after B.Sc. about the time he became Professor and Head of the Geography Department. I knew he was in the mould of his older brother; a dedicated and good teacher and a mentor to all those who came close to him.

Subhan Saheb was a very strict, no nonsense kind of teacher, but he never had to raise his voice in the class. He had a bearing that impelled even the most disorderly disruptive student to behave. Even when the students who did not like math and found it hard that is why they did not particularly care for Subhan sahib as well, criticized him behind his back with respect. Subhan Saheb had a unique capability to nudge his students to do the best they were capable of achieving.

I did not visit AMU as often and did not get to see Shafi Saheb that often though I kept track of his achievements, but I made sure that every time I visited Jaunpur my hometown I spent some precious time with Subhan Saheb. He invariably talked of Shafi Saheb with great affection. I owe a lot to both the brothers, my mentors. With sadness,

Mirza A. Beg