Latest news with #Naim
Days of Palestine
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Days of Palestine
Hamas: Israel's Creation of 'Magen Oz' Route Reveals Malicious Intentions to Remain in Gaza
DaysofPal—The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has accused the Israeli occupation of attempting to impose new realities on the ground that confirm its intentions to remain in Gaza and not end the war, following the Israeli army's announcement of a new military corridor named 'Magen Oz', which separates eastern Khan Younis from its western part. Hamas senior official Dr. Bassem Naim said in a Facebook post that the establishment of this new route contradicts Israel's claims at the negotiating table, stressing that the Israeli occupation is only engaging in negotiations superficially to manage domestic opinion and ease international pressure. Naim added, 'Israel hasn't submitted any new maps for over a week, despite what it claims in the media. Today's announcement of the new route that splits Khan Younis in half is a clear response in practice.' The announcement comes amid ongoing international efforts to reach a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, which are being hindered by Israeli-imposed obstacles, notably the 'Morag' corridor, which separates Rafah from Khan Younis and remains one of the main points of contention in the Doha talks. With the declaration of 'Magen Oz', the number of Israeli military corridors dissecting Gaza has now risen to four: Netzarim, Philadelphi, Morag, and Magen Oz, with the newest route extending 15 kilometers. Observers have described the move as an indication of Israel's intention to enforce a permanent geographic division of the Gaza Strip. Shortlink for this post:
The Sun
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Hamas accuses Israel of long-term Gaza military control
GAZA CITY: Hamas has accused Israel of seeking long-term military control over the Gaza Strip, dismissing reports of progress in ceasefire negotiations. The ongoing indirect talks in Doha, now in their second week, remain deadlocked over Israel's troop presence in the Palestinian territory. Hamas insists on a full Israeli withdrawal and last week rejected a proposal that would have allowed troops to remain in over 40 percent of Gaza. Israeli public broadcaster Kan cited an unnamed foreign official stating that revised pullback maps were being discussed. However, Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim refuted this, telling AFP, '(Israel) has not yet delivered any new or revised maps regarding military withdrawals from the Gaza Strip.' Naim further asserted, 'The entire Gaza Strip is currently under the military control of (Israel). What is happening on the ground confirms (Israel's) intentions and plans to maintain and prolong military control within the Gaza Strip for the long term.' He accused Israel of misleading mediators by publicly advocating for peace while allegedly planning continued occupation. Israel, which seeks to dismantle Hamas as a military force, has blamed the group for inflexibility. Despite the tensions, Qatari mediators stated there is 'no stalemate' in talks, though no deadline has been set for a resolution. – AFP
Indian Express
15-07-2025
- General
- Indian Express
In CM Naim, East and West met
Last week, a friend called to give me the sad news of Naim sahib's passing. He had not been too well since suffering a stroke a couple of years ago. But after returning from rehab, his spirit was as indomitable as ever. He relished writing and wrote with zest: Sparkling essays, columns and a weekly, later monthly, newsletter that he dispatched electronically to a large following. Naim sahib did not shy away from technology. He had a website on which he posted stuff he liked. But the newsletter was his commentary on various subjects related to literature, including world politics that impacted literature. He wrote what was on his mind without mincing the truth. It was a privilege to be on his mailing list. Choudhri Muhammad Naim (1935-2025) was a very dear friend of my father, (Urdu writer) Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. He would affectionately call him Choudhri but I always addressed him as Naim sahib, never Naim chacha or uncle, as is the common tradition in South Asian families. Perhaps this form of address was an instinctive nod to the fact that he lived in America, taught at the University of Chicago and had a 'Western' air about him. But he always spoke chaste Urdu, never English. As a young girl, my interpretation of Western manners was not just his corduroy trousers and jacket but also his bluntness. If Naim sahib didn't like something, he would firmly say, 'no'. I admired him and kept a safe distance from him. Naim sahib also carried a camera and would take pictures of us. In the India of the 1970s, a sleek camera was a luxury one often associated with foreigners. I still have the pictures he took of my parents and one of me with my father. I remember my father looking forward to Naim sahib's yearly visits to India. They would be engaged in discussions for hours on serious subjects but also find time to share life stories. I could hear the sounds of laughter floating from my father's study. He would joke about my father's obsession with work, advise him to relax and take up gardening. My father would be half-amused and half-annoyed at this. Only Naim sahib could chastise him. I have memories of his visits from my father's postings at Lucknow, Allahabad, Delhi and Patna. Lucknow was special because Naim sahib was from Barabanki, a town not far from there. He did his Master's in Urdu literature from Lucknow University in 1955, after which he joined the University of California, Berkeley, as a graduate student. He completed an MA in Linguistics from UC Berkeley in 1961. From 1968 until his retirement in 2001, he taught at the University of Chicago's Department of South Asian Languages and Civilisations; he served as its chairperson from 1985 to 1991. When Naim sahib began teaching Urdu language and literature, there weren't many resources for teaching Urdu at universities. He had to improvise and find a methodology that would connect with his students. His style of teaching was very South Asian; that is, he criticised more than he praised. He pushed his students to higher levels of proficiency; sometimes, there were disappointments, at other times spectacular successes. His list of accomplishments is long and I am not going to go into the many programmes and university presses he served, but I must mention his enduring achievements — first as the co-founder of the pathbreaking Mahfil: Journal of South Asian Literature in 1965, and later, as the founding editor of Urdu's premier journal, The Journal of Urdu Studies. The journal began publication in 1981. He did great service in producing two textbooks of Urdu, Readings in Urdu Prose and Poetry (1965) and Introductory Urdu in two volumes (1999). At Chicago, he produced several distinguished PhDs, among them the critic and scholar Frances W Pritchett. Scrolling through Pritchett's website on Naim sahib for his publications, one finds an impressive list of articles and translations. He did not have a taste for writing books/monographs but one of his enduring works is the stellar translation, with an introduction and notes, of Mir Taqi Mir's convoluted autobiography, Zikr-e Mir (1999). When I moved to the US in 1998, I did not expect Naim sahib to gush over my arrival. On my father's insistence, I did call him a few times and he was concerned in a friendly way about how I would manage alone in a foreign place. He didn't offer any help by way of writing recommendation letters. Thus, I was surprised when I received a letter in the mail from him (I do wish I could find that letter now). In that letter, he told me that he had suggested my name to Oxford University Press to edit an anthology of modern Urdu literature. It had been offered to him, he said, but he wrote that in his opinion, after my father, I was the only person he could see accomplishing this huge task. I was floored. I accepted the job and went on to publish the two-volume anthology in 2008. That was a milestone in my academic career and I owe it to Naim sahib. Choudhri Naim straddled Eastern and Western literary conventions with acuity. His passing leaves a huge void in Urdu studies. The writer is professor, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia, US
Express Tribune
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Remembering CM Naim
It was sometime in late fall of 1999, a few months after I had arrived at the University of Chicago, that I first heard of Professor CM Naim – or Naim sahib, as some of my fellow students called him. He was a prominent scholar of Urdu literature and literary tradition, and had taught Urdu to hundreds of students at the University of Chicago over the years. His reputation was, as was conveyed to me by those in his class, of a serious instructor with exacting standards. It was perhaps my own residual trauma of instructors with exacting standards that I had encountered in Pakistan, and my own ignorance of how important it is to spend time with scholars of literature, that I never sought to meet him. I heard plenty of stories about his classes and his encyclopedic knowledge, his insistence on proper pronunciation, and his attention to every single word in text. I learned from friends that he was also the organiser of Friday afternoon chai which, among other things, used to have samosas. In the typical fashion of graduate students who longed for free food, I would show up, just after the mehfil had ended, to see if there were some left over samosas. I did not have the courage to meet Naim sahib. Years later, when some of my trauma dissipated and my love for literature reignited, I came across many of his writings, scholarly and otherwise. I was inspired and mesmerised. I especially loved his articles on the history of jasoosi novels (an umbrella term that combines spy novels, crime fiction and detective stories). I learned about Tirath Ram Ferozpuri and the early Urdu translations of English detective stories. His most recent book on the topic, Urdu Crime Fiction 1890-1950: An informal History, is as engaging as it is insightful. Over the years, I learned about him from others who had spent their lifetime studying south Asia, Urdu literature, or cultural traditions in the region. I regretted the fact that I did not get to benefit from his wisdom while he and I were on the same campus. I was too busy in the lab, too myopic in my worldview and too naïve to appreciate the opportunity. Then, one day in early 2024, I learned that Naim sahib had written to a mutual acquaintance, Professor Manan Ahmad, about my Urdu book, Aaina haaye khud shanasi, that had been reviewed in a newspaper, and he had expressed interest in reading it. This was my cue, and I was not going to miss this opportunity. I immediately sent him a copy. A couple of weeks later, in March 2024, I got a note from him. He wrote, "Biradaram, I finished your book. Wish it was longer. Wise, sincere in the sense of being really what its title says and not nursing some hope or grudge. But you do write high Urdu; humour comes in Yusufi's manner. Your book is such that should read by all bright young people." I know that I do not deserve such praise, and that he was being extremely generous, but I was over the moon. This was just the first part of the email. In the second part, he was the exacting professor once again and pointed to several typos that need to be corrected. That day, I regretted my decision of not seeking his company on campus even more. That email exchange in March opened a new chapter in my interactions with Naim sahib. I sent him my other book that he liked just as much. We regularly communicated about essay writing in Urdu, the publishing industry, the nature of language and what we both were reading these days. I would send him my Urdu essays and he would comment on their diction, style and structure. I would read and re-read his every email, not because they were complicated or layered, but because there was a sincerity and honesty in them that I craved. In one of his last emails to me, he encouraged me to write more and ended his note with: Zor-i qalam paayanda baad. Naim sahib passed away last week, but I know the strength of his pen lives on.
Scroll.in
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Remembering CM Naim (1936-2025): The conscience keeper of Urdu, who wrote fearlessly of its politics
Chaudhary Mohammad Naim, aka CM Naim, who passed away on July 9, 2025, at the age of 89, was a peerless scholar of Urdu literature who wrote prolifically in English. In that sense, Naim was also a conscience keeper since he regularly assessed the works of Urdu legends and Urdu studies in the more exacting standard that writing in English could provide him. He was born in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh and after studying at Lucknow University, Deccan College and the University of California, Berkeley, he remained associated with the University of Chicago for over four decades at the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilisations. Besides contributing enormously to South Asian studies, he also introduced some prominent and not-so-prominent Urdu literary works to a wider audience. It won't be out of place to call him a one-man industry. Apart from his vast scholarly output, he frequently wrote in the media. Letters to Hindustan Times, EPW and his columns in Outlook stand out for the fresh and sharp perspectives they offered. He never shied away from taking difficult positions. Obituaries published following his passing away rightly mention his books – the most recent one being Urdu Crime Fiction, 1890-1950: An Informal History. However, equally celebrated and forthright were some of his journal articles and writings in the media. A decade and a half ago, he wrote about the alleged plagiarism by the high priest of Urdu, Gopi Chand Narang. The plagiarism, highlighted by several people, including Fuzail Jaffrey and Imran Bhinder, acquired more weight as Naim expounded on it in his popular Outlook column. In his quest for objectivity and honest scholarship, even the greatest would come under the scanner. A journal article written in the wake of the 1965 India–Pakistan war examined the attitude and literary output of the prominent Urdu writers in both countries. Naim described Ali Sardar Jafri's piece in Dharmayug as having 'blatantly confused motives' and parts of eminent Hindi writer Kamaleshwar's rejoinder to it as 'unfair'. Khwaja Ahmed Abbas had accused Faiz Ahmed Faiz of tacitly supporting Pakistan's war mongering against India. According to Naim, the 'hypocrisy underlying Abbas' remarks needs no comment.' One has to read this article to appreciate the nuanced analysis from Naim of an important event that gave him the opportunity to point out certain plain truths. He highlighted that '…the elders of the Progressive Movement who over the years had come to form a kind of literary establishment, controlling magazines, radio and film industry jobs, and cultural embassies.' What stood out for me was his perceptive observation that two separate literary-cultural identities will emerge that will complement the existing separate national-political identities. Naim did not want Urdu writers to apologise for their politics, which was only stopping them from writing more freely. This was crucial, according to Naim, to generate an atmosphere of greater trust and respect akin to English language writers in England and America. While Naim had donned the hat of a critic when several of the Progressive Movement legends were alive and he never minced words, some of his critics would seek to reduce his stature by saying that he was teaching elementary Urdu to students in the US! Such invectives didn't bother him. A whole generation of scholars benefited from his stewardship of The Annual of Urdu Studies and his large-heartedness to help those who reached out to him. Although I never met him, I enjoyed and benefited much from our conversations over email, which began over a decade ago. For someone steeped deep in the Urdu ethos and who grew up in the environs around Lucknow of the 1940s and 1950s, he was uncharacteristically unbeholden to nostalgia. I think that stemmed from his catholicity of views and the ability to look at things from a long-term perspective. Five years ago, in an email he recounted his experience of attending a Progressive Writers Association meeting in Lucknow. 'In 1966, I happened to be in Barabanki when I read that a major meeting of the Association would be held in Lucknow to celebrate the 30th anniversary. I eagerly went and was horrified to see thatthe crowd consisted of fewer than 20 people. In Lucknow – the city where the Association began. In a city full of colleges and one university. Only the old, big names who had survived the years had come.' Naim held the view that the average Marathi and Bengali scholars knew more about literary theories than Urdu academics. He was also critical of scholars who had notions that a non-native academic could not do justice to Urdu studies. In response to one such tirade, he gave a sharp rejoinder, titling his piece 'Our ungenerous little world of Urdu Studies.' I have mentioned these nuggets to make the point that CM Naim, the person, was not different from C M Naim the scholar. His life was marked by humility, solid scholarship and measured words. Although it must be pointed out that if the occasion arose, he never shied away from using his meticulous observation and wisdom to great effect. He moved to the US in the late 1950s but continued his annual visits to India. Lucknow, the city of culture, was a regular visit for Naim, known for its two iconic bookstores: Ram Advani Booksellers in Hazratganj (which closed down in 2016) and Danish Mahal in Aminabad. Naim could easily be one of the most learned and treasured customers of both these stores and his passing away signifies the death of an icon who straddled multiple genres and cultures.
