Choudhri Mohammed Naim passed away in Hyde Park, Chicago, on July 9, 2025. Naim—called Naim Sahib by his students and colleagues, using the Urdu honorific—was 89. He was a prolific author, cultural critic, and mentor to many across his long career, and widely regarded as the founder of Urdu studies in North America.
Born on June 3, 1930 in Barabanki, C.M. Naim attended nearby Lucknow University, where earned a B.A. and M.A. in Urdu. He then proceeded to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned an M.A. in Linguistics in 1961. That same year he joined the faculty of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC) at the University of Chicago. He later chaired the department from 1985 to 1991. Though he retired in 2001, he remained in Hyde Park and maintained a close association with SALC. He also served as a visiting associate professor Aligarh Muslim University from 1971 to 1972. After his retirement he was a visiting professor at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, in 2003, and he was a national fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, in 2009
Naim’s publications were numerous and wide-ranging. They included text books on Urdu, translations of Urdu works, works that were autobiographical in nature, studies of humor in Urdu poetry of the eighteenth century, political and social commentaries, and a recent pioneering book on crime fiction in Urdu (2023). Among his most memorable works were his article on Hasrat Mohani titled “The Maulana who Loved Krishna,” published in Economic & Political Weekly in 2013, as well as his biographies of Mir Taqi Mir (1999) and Mirza Ghalib (1972). His notable 1989 essay “In the Eye of the Intifada, A Muslim’s Journey to the Land of Oppression,” still resonates today, over three-and-a-half decades after it was written. His A Killing in Ferozewala: Essays / Polemics / Review (2013) serves as a prime example of his engagement with political and social issues concerning Islam, Muslim politics and Pakistan. Deeply committed to writing for public forums, Naim was also a regular contributor to the major media sites Scroll.in and TheWire.in. Naim was the founding editor of both Annual of Urdu Studies and and the co-founder (with Carlo Coppola) of Mahfil (now Journal of South Asian Literature). He was also deeply involved in the collection and preservation of Urdu books and periodicals, especially those now in the University of Chicago Library’s South Asian holdings.