Asghar Ali Engineer

Asghar Ali Engineer Biography

Asghar Ali Engineer was a prolific reformist-writer and social activist from Salumbar, Rajasthan. He led the Progressive Dawoodi Bohra movement and is known international for his work on liberation theology in Islam. As a social activist, he focused on communalism and communal and ethnic violence in India and South Asia. ‘A Living Faith: My Quest for Peace, Harmony and Social Change’ is his autobiography work published in the year 2011. He is the founder of Institute of Islamic Studies (1980) and the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (1993) and has headed both these organizations. He has also contributed a lot to the website based on contrasting world views - The God Contention.

Asghar Ali Engineer was born 10 March 1939 in Salumbar, Rajasthan. His father was a Bohra priest, Shaikh Qurban Hussain. Asghar learnt Quranic tafsir, tawil, Fiqh and hadith, alongside Arabic language. He completed civil engineering from Vikram University in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. He served for 20 years as an engineer in the Bombay Municipal Corporation and took voluntary retirement in the year 1972. Later he devoted his full time to Bohra reform movement. He began to play a leading role in the reform movement in Udaipur in 1972. He has been instrumental in publicizing the Progressive Dawoodi Bohra movement through his writings and speeches.

He upheld his views on women’s rights. He believed that women should be equal to men. He also commented that women do not enjoy the social status the Quran has given them. Dalmia Award for communal harmony in 1990, an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Calcutta in 1993, the Communal Harmony Award in 1997 and the Right Livelihood Award in 2004 are the major awards received by him.

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Updated: March 06, 2014