Abdul Shakoor Rashad

Professor Abdul Shakoor Rashad (Pashto: عبدالشکور رشاد‎) was born on November 14, 1921 in Kandahar City, Afghanistan.

Early life

Abdul Shakoor Rashad graduated from school at the age of 12 in 1933. While he was only 13 years old, he was appointed as a teacher in school in 1934 from where he started his official career.^[1]

In 1948, Abdul Shakoor went to India for further education where he continued his research in Pashto language. While he was in India, he wrote the book "Lodi Pashtoons" consisting of (351) pages and learned Hindi Language.^[2]

Academic life

In 1957, Abdul Shakoor became a member of the Pashto Tolana (Pashto Academy) and a professor of Pashto language at the Faculty of Language and Literature at the Kabul University. Later on he became the Assistant Director of pashto Tolana.

In 1961, he was appointed as a Pashto teacher in the Institute of Eastern Research in St. Petersburg (Previously known as Lenin Grad) where he served for two and a half years.^[3] He moved back to Kabul where he continued to serve as a professor at the University of Kabul in the Faculty of Language and Literature as Professor and as the Chief of the Pashto Department.

Professor Rashad besides his native language Pashto spoke fluent Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Russian and English. He also had knowledge of Sanskrit, Japanese and other regional languages. He had written poems in Persian and Urdu languages as well. However has devoted all his life in study and research of Pashto literature.

Reshad knew 26 languages including Sasnkrit and Hebrew. He has written around 105 books (only 36 were published) and hundreds of articles.^[2]

In 2004, due to his numerous efforts in the fields of Art, Science, Philosophy, History and Literature, he was given the title of "Alama"(Laureate, Academician) by the Govt. of Afghanistan and he was greeted by the then Governor of Kandahar Province Mohammad Yousaf Pashtun by organizing a seminar by his name for his remarkable efforts and official giving him the title of "Alama".

Political life

In 1946, Abdul Shakoor was appointed as the Director of Kandahar City Selection Committee and in 1947 he became the Deputy Mayor of Kandahar City.^[2]

At the age of 26, Abdul Shakoor joined the "Weesh Zalmian - ويښ زلميان (Awaken Youth)", an Afghan youth movement. In 1952, he was elected as a representative of Weesh Zalmian to the parliament. But due to the opposition of Governor Abdul Ghani Khan and the officials of that time, his vote box was confiscated by the police from the election bureau. In this movement the high-profile leaders, writers, activists such as Hasham Maiwandwal(Prime Minister of Afghanistan), Abdul Rauf Benawa, Sadiqullah Reshteen, Faiz Mohammad Angar, Khwakhuzhi Sahib, Abdul Hye Habibi, Noor Mohammad Angar, Bari Jahani, Habibullah Rafi, Gul Pacha Ulfat, Basarki Sahab and others were associated with him.

Abdul Shakoor remained in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989) and the Civil War in Afghanistan followed by the withdrawal of the Russian forces form Afghanistan. He wrote several poems and articles critical of the communist regimes during the Soviet occupation and the warlords during the civil war. For security reasons, most of his works were published by alias names.

Abdul Shakoor Rashad retired after the communist coup in 1978. However, he always kept a close academic relation with the institutions and other academics.

He died on 1 December 2004 at the age of 83 in Kabul, Afghanistan and he was buried in Kandahar University Campus in Kandahar city.^[4]

References