Tariq Rahman

Tariq Rahman (born 4 February 1949) is a Pakistani academic scholar, newspaper columnist, researcher, and a writer.

Currently based in Lahore, he is author of many books and other publications, mainly in the field of linguistics. He has been awarded several national and international awards to recognise his research and scholarly work.

Early life and education

He was born in Bareilly (U.P.) in India on 4 February 1949. The family moved to Pakistan in 1951. His father, Sami Ullah Khan, served as the head of the mathematics department at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, near Abbottabad. Educated at Burn Hall School (now Army Burn Hall College), he joined the army as an armoured corps officer in 1971. However, he decided to leave the army—on the grounds of being a conscientious objector to the military action in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. He finally resigned his commission in 1978. This was recognised by the Government of Bangladesh which conferred upon him a civil award on 1 October 2013 in Dhaka. Meanwhile, he had obtained three master's degrees as a private candidate. In 1979, he won a British Council scholarship, which later enabled him to obtain master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Sheffield in England in 1985. His first PhD was in literature. Later he left the path of literature as his main interest was in social sciences. Tariq Rahman's biodata on Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad website
Retrieved 6 August 2019

Career

Tariq Rahman joined the academia as an associate professor in the English Department of Peshawar University in 1985. In 1987, he became professor and head of the English Department in the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir in Muzaffarabad where he introduced the subject of linguistics. In 1989, he also got an M.Litt in linguistics from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. In 1990, he joined the National Institute of Pakistan Studies. Dr. Rahman was made distinguished national professor for life in 2004 and a tenured professor in 2007. He joined the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan in 2011 as Dean of the School of Education. In September 2014 he was appointed as the Dean of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in the same university and he continues to serve at this position to date. He has been Academic Visitor at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, and is Ordinary Member of Common Room (subject to rules) at the same college. He has also been Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford.

Awards and honors

*1995–96, he was a Fulbright fellow (USA).
*2004, he was awarded the Pride of Performance Award for research by the President of Pakistan.
*2007, he was appointed the director of the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad and later in 2010, he was made a professor emeritus at the same university.
*2009, he was given the ''Lifetime Achievement Award'' by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.
*September 2011 — after the end of his tenure as director of the NIPS at Quaid-e-Azam University – he accepted the deanship of the School of Education at the Beaconhouse National University, Pakistan.
*November 2011, he was awarded the Humboldt Research Award for his research—being the first Pakistani to get the research award—though many Pakistanis had been given the Humboldt fellowship earlier. In the award ceremony on 20 June 2012, Professor Dr. Helmut Schwarz, president of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung said: 'I am delighted to welcome our first research award winner from Pakistan, Professor Tariq Rahman.' This award was conferred on him for his books such as ''Pakistani English'' (1990), ''A History of Pakistani Literature in English'' (1991), ''Language and Politics in Pakistan'' (1996), ''Language, Education and Culture'' (1999), ''Language, Ideology and Power: Language Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India'' (2002), ''Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education and Polarization in Pakistan'' (2004) and ''From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History'' (2011) besides a large number of scholarly papers, conference presentations, book reviews and citations to his work in scholarly writing.
*2014, the University of Sheffield awarded him a higher doctorate (Litt. D) after due examination of his total research output in humanities and social sciences.
*2015–16, he was elected a visiting fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Having been a visiting academic for three consecutive years in order to write a book, he was elected a permanent member of the common room at Wolfson College, University of Oxford in 2018.
*Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Distinction) Award by the President of Pakistan