Qazi Motahar Hossain

Qazi Motahar Hossain (30 July 1897 – 9 October 1981) was a Bangladeshi writer, scientist, statistician, chess player, and journalist. Hossain was a pioneer educationalist of Bangladesh. He did original research in statistics and pioneered its education in Bangladesh both as a faculty and administrator. As one of the early faculties of University of Dhaka, he was vigorously active in the cultural circles that grew around it. As a Dhaka-centric literary figure in late British India, a period marked by communality and religious sentiment, Hossain and his literary group Shikha distinguished themselves as proponents of communal harmony and rationalism. He was among the sceptical intellectuals who warned of the consequences of the short-lived state of Pakistan. On several occasions, he vocally criticized Pakistani government policies, most importantly on the state language question. Hossain was born into the aristocratic Qazi family of Bagmara to Qazi Gawharuddin and Tasirunnesa, at his maternal home, Lakshmipur village, in Kushtia District, in the then British India. His family had arrived in Mughal Bengal from Western Asia during the reign of Shah Jahangir, his ancestors were designated as the judges of the court of Delhi, hence the name of the clan is "Qazi." He passed his childhood years at his father's village Bagmara in Rajbari, a district adjacent to Kushtia. He received his earliest education from his father and from the village primary school.