Qazi Motahar Hossain: A devoted soul of scientific search

Aminul Islam: Qazi Motahar Hossain was a prominent author, scientist, statistician, chess player and journalist. Today is July 30. In this day in 1897 the legendary soul of scientific search  was born.

It has been known that Qazi Motahar Hossain had a intimate friendship with poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and Kazi Abdul Odud. He was also a famous chess player.

Qazi Motahar Hossain was born in his mother’s village Lakshmipur in Kushtia on July 30, 1897. His father was Qazi Gaohar Uddin Ahmed and mother was Tasirunnesa.

He passed his childhood in his father’s village Bagmara in Faridpur. He received his earliest education from his father and from the village primary school.

Motahar entered Kushtia High School for secondary studies. Among the teachers he specially recalled were Jyotindranath Roy and Jatindra Mohan Biswas.

He learnt algebra, geometry, conic section and mechanics from Jyotindranath Roy. Mr Roy introduced the mechanics course in the school solely for Motahar as he was the only student of mechanics. In 1915, he passed Entrance from
there.

After passing entrance, he admitted himself into the Presidency College, Calcutta for I Sc course. There he was highly impressed by eminent teachers like Praphulla Chandra Ghosh (English), Sterling (English), Praphulla Chandra Roy
(Chemistry).

But he transferred himself to Rajshahi College in the middle of academic year. Beside his studies Motahar showed considerable skill and interest in sports such as football, tennis etc. In 1917, he passed ISc from this college.

He chose Dhaka College to take higher studies in Mathematics and Physics. In 1917, he arrived at Dhaka and got admitted to Dhaka College.

Here he found WA Jenkins (Physics), Wrangler Bhupati Mohan Sen (Mathematics), Bankim Das Banerjee (Mathematics) and others as teachers. In 1919 he was awarded BA (Honors) from this college.

Qazi Motahar Hossain joined the newly established Dhaka University in 1921 as a demonstrator of Physics while he was a student of M A at Dhaka College. In 1923 he was promoted to assistant-lecturer. In 1948 Statistics M A was established with his own effort and he joined the department. He retired from Dhaka University in 1961.

In 1964 he founded the Institute of Statistical Research and Training. From 1964–1966 he served as the founder-director of the institute. He retired from the position of director in 1966. Dhaka University appointed him as honorary Professor Emeritus in 1969.

Motahar Hossain also showed unusual skill in the game of chess. For seven times he was the all India chess champion. He is known as the chess-guru of Bangladesh as he has popularised the game to his generation. Many of his pupils later flourished in the game.

In 1920`s and 1930s he became involved with "Buddhir Mukti Andolon" (Freedom of thought movement) with his intimate friend Kazi Abdul Odud and others as a convener and editor of the organisations official proceeding named Shikha.

In 1975 after the liberation of Bangladesh he became the national professor of Bangladesh. Until his death in 1981 he decorated the position. He was a founder fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences.

risingbd/July 30, 2015/Aminul