There are men in history whose legacies are not measured by titles or timelines but by the vastness of the intellectual horizons they open. They do not simply engage with their age but they define, challenge, and, at times, transcend it. Professor Khurshid Ahmad belonged to that rare cadre. He was not a personality constructed for the gallery of fame, nor a thinker molded for the fashion of ideological convenience. He was, above all, a man of conviction and an architect of thought and a steward of Islamic intellectual tradition in the modern age.

It is unfortunate that in a society increasingly seduced by surfaces, we reserve little space for minds that demand depth. Professor Khurshid Ahmad was neither a media figure, nor an orator of flamboyant gestures. He was a scholar of substance who spoke in paragraphs and not punchlines. And it is precisely for this reason that his absence is so difficult to bear, for such men do not leave behind mere memories; they leave behind silences that echo with what we should have asked and what we should have learned.

His intellectual trajectory was forged early within the ferment of ideological contestation and spiritual search. It was a journey that passed through the company of titans – none more formative than Maulana Syed Abul A‘la Maududi (RA), the seminal thinker whose ideas reshaped twentieth-century Muslim thought. Besides being a student of Syed Maududi, he was his interlocutor, translator, and trustee. He absorbed his master’s corpus with active reflection. In him, the thought of Syed Maududi did not fossilize but it flowed.

One of the most enduring examples of this continuity was his English rendering of Tafheem-ul-Qur’an, an endeavor that was not a mere act of translation but of cultural and intellectual transference. He carried Qur’anic interpretation across linguistic frontiers while remaining faithful to its conceptual integrity. That effort, like many others, underscored his commitment to Islamic thought.

In Professor Khurshid Ahmad’s vision, Islam was not a slogan nor a private pietism. It was an entire worldview – one that must speak to economics, education, political ethics, and social justice. As an economist, he stood apart. He critiqued capitalist excess not from a Marxist envy but from a Qur’anic ethic. His writings on Islamic economics were not exotic reinterpretations but coherent alternatives to a global financial order built on debt, deception, and dispossession.

Indeed, it was this ability – to think within tradition without being trapped by it – that made Professor Khurshid a formidable intellectual force. His establishment of the Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad was a testament to this ethos: an institution meant not only to analyze but to reimagine policy in light of ethical imperatives rooted in Islamic civilization.

Yet, for all his erudition, he bore himself with the humility of those who know the weight of truth. He was not a scholar seduced by applause nor one unsettled by resistance. He was calm in argument and composed in disagreement, a mark not merely of temperament but of character refined by sincerity.

One must also highlight a less documented, yet deeply telling aspect of his life: his unwavering solidarity with the people of Kashmir. His connection with the Kashmiri cause was not episodic or performative. It was profound, strategic, and heartfelt. He was among the few Pakistani intellectuals whose support for Kashmir’s right to self-determination was informed by both historical legitimacy and ethical responsibility. Whenever the resistance camp in Azad Jammu and Kashmir found itself caught in ambiguity or adversity, it was Syed Ali Shah Geelani — the uncompromising symbol of Kashmiri resistance — who advised them to seek counsel from Professor Khurshid Ahmad. Such was the trust in his wisdom and foresight.

And now, that voice is silent.

We are left in an age where wisdom is algorithmic and knowledge is transactional. In such times, the passing of a thinker like Professor Khurshid Ahmad is not simply the loss of a scholar — it is the severing of a lineage, the dimming of a light once lit by sincerity, scholarship, and sacrifice. May Allah grant him highest place in Heavens. Aameen