Eqbal Ahmad

Eqbal Ahmad (1933 – 11 May 1999) was a Pakistani political scientist, writer and academic known for his anti-war activism, support for resistance movement's globally and academic contributions to the study of Near East. Born in Bihar, British India, Ahmad migrated to Pakistan as a child and went on to study economics at the Forman Christian College, after graduating Ahmad worked briefly as an army officer and was wounded in the First Kashmir War.

He moved to the United States in the mid-1950s as a rotary fellow at the Occidental College. He then moved to study political science and middle east history at the Princeton University where he earned his PhD in 1965. During his time at Princeton, Ahmad travelled to Tunisia and Algeria as part of his doctoral dissertation. In Algiers, he supported the revolution leading to his subsequent arrest in France. Ahmad went on to teach at the University of Illinois and at the Cornell University until 1968. During this time, Ahmad also became a prominet fellow of the anti-war Institute for Policy Studies.