Goodbye Professor Naim
By Vidya Rao
Re-reading, now, his essay on ‘The Art of the Urdu Marsiya’, I realise once more what a wonderful teacher CM Naim must have been. I, sadly, never had the privilege of being his student. But, then to have known him briefly, even if only as an editor—that was privilege enough.
But this essay, as all his writings— I see again how systematically and with such clarity Naim Sahab takes his reader through a maze of unfamiliar terms and concepts! How clearly he explains each idea and the underlying cultural universe held within each word. We, the readers are guided gently, yet rigorously through the complexity, even unfamiliarity, of the world of the marsiya, to an understanding and appreciation of this little-known cultural form in its context.
Professor CM Naim’s passing earlier this month, on the 9 July 2025, brings to an end a world of a certain kind of meticulous scholarship, which could yet connect academic discourse with everyday events and concerns. His was a scholarship that was inclusive—you didn’t have to be an academic or scholar to read and understand and appreciate his ideas. In this he was the archetypal Teacher, including each student, each reader in his work. And more, his work brought to us a world of generosity, graciousness and a refined adab, along with a commitment to secularism that could co-exist with a deep commitment to faith.
Born in 1936 in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, educated at Lucknow, Pune and then Berkeley, Professor Naim’s illustrious career spanned many worlds. He taught in universities across the United States and India, eventually, in 1961, finding his home in Chicago’s Department of South Asian Languages and Civilisations. He was Chair of the Department from 1985 to 1991, then Professor Emeritus till the time of his passing. During this time he was also Visiting Professor at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (2003) and National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla (2009), and before all this, during 1971-72, was Associate Professor at Aligarh Muslim University….
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In Naim Sahab’s Class: By Shefali Jha
A moving tribute to C.M. Naim, celebrating his warmth, wit, and passion for Urdu poetry. Remembered for his kindness, intellectual rigour, and belief in learning through community and conversation, Naim sahab inspired generations as a devoted teacher, literary maverick, and steadfast champion of Urdu literature.
I almost did not take Naim sahab’s advanced Urdu reading course in the Winter of 2010 at the University of Chicago. Being certain my Urdu was nowhere near good enough to sit in his class, where he would read the extraordinary elegiac poetry of Mir Anis with us, it was on the persuasion of more sensible friends that I found myself in the office where four or five of us would eventually spend hours of the week immersing ourselves in the jalal and jamal of Imam Hussain, in the history of the Urdu marsiya, and the Awadh traditions of listening, recitation, and mourning the genre brings alive.
I could say we were in awe of Naim sahab’s reputation as a scholar and non-sufferer of fools, but that would only be half true. We were plain scared, graduate students on the verge of candidacy, having weathered many a Chicago seminar and taught a few undergraduate classes ourselves. After all, we had been at conferences where his voice would call out from the back of the room after a couple of inexcusably long papers, “Madam Chairperson, could you tell the audience how much time each presenter is allotted?” Or telling off a visiting scholar for their pronunciation, “First, please note that it’s Mus-lim, not Muz-lam.”…
https://www.theindiaforum.in/culture/remembering-cm-naim-scholar-extraordinary
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A philosophy professor’s final class
R.I.P. Hari Sen (1955-2024). Beloved teacher and outstanding human being
Natalie Zemon Davis, Historian of the Marginalized, Dies at 94
After the truth-shower 