Abdul Haq

Abdul Haq was born at Sarawan near Hapur in Uttar Pradesh; the Urdu article records that his ancestors were Hindu Kayasths of Hapur who converted to Islam in the Mughal era. He was educated at Aligarh under the influence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, entered the service of Hyderabad State and rose to chief inspector of schools.¹²

Elected secretary of the Anjuman in 1912, Abdul Haq edited the journals Urdu, Science and Hamari Zaban and produced English–Urdu dictionaries, Urdu grammars and a standard Urdu textbook. After retiring from Osmania University in 1930 he lived at Delhi, then migrated to Pakistan in 1948 and continued the Anjuman's work and the Urdu College at Karachi.²

Abdul Haq demanded that Urdu be Pakistan's sole national language. He died of bladder cancer at Karachi on 16 August 1961 and was buried in the grounds of the Federal Urdu College; Pakistan Post issued a commemorative stamp in his honour in 2004.²³

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