The b.i.t.s. Eqbal Ahmad Site by Sabeen Mahmud

Eqbal Ahmad’s archives are around the world and across time! We encourage you to access them for your personal study and for the benefit of our community and the world. With the support and kind permission of the The Sabeen Mahmud Foundation and Sabeen’s Mother Mahenaz Mahmud, we reproduce Sabeen’s site dedicated to Eqbal Ahmad and her accompanying journal entry below - Thank You Sabeen!

The Note she wrote:

Finally!

The website was uploaded at 1:30 p.m. on the 24th of November, 2001.

Many thanks to Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian who supported the endeavour with great enthusiasm. Zubair Ahmed, Salman Azeem and Nada Raza: a HUGE thank you for getting the site up and running. Thanks also to b.i.t.s. for hosting the site, free of cost.

Sabeen Mahmud

The Original Vision

On the 11th of May 1999 (the day Dr. Eqbal Ahmad passed away), through a haze of shock and grief, I knew that a web site was required immediately. As a web developer, this seemed to me the most obvious contribution I could make to the memory of a man who changed my life, even though I met him only 3 or 4 times. Returning to the real world the next day, I was immediately sucked back into the rat race of endless projects and deadlines. The Eqbal Ahmad web site remained an important, but silent priority and I kept trying to think of ways in which it could be produced without a huge injection of cash, research, and most importantly, human resources and time.

21st May 2000: On the occassion of Dr. Eqbal's first death anniversary memorial, trying valiantly to drown out the roar of one of the speakers, I finally hit upon what now seems to be the most obvious solution ...

The proposal: Create the structure/skeleton for a web site. The content will be generated by visitors to the site who will fill out a simple web-based form (Name, E-Mail Address, Article/Comment/Tribute/Event etc.) As soon as the user clicks the "Submit" button, the information goes straight into a database and is immediately rendered on to a pre-designed page.

As friends, admirers, family of Dr. Eqbal, our key role would be to inform as many diverse individuals, groups, organizations etc. of the existence of this web site and encourage them to come and post content so that the site grows into a huge repository of information.

Obviously before the site is announced to the world at large, efforts will have to be made to make some content immediately available. I am certain that if I create the infrastructure for the website, there is enough material readily available to get the site rolling very soon. I would appeal to Zohra and other younger members of Dr. Eqbal's family etc. to do some grunt-work in the form of collecting material and converting it into digital formats.

I will handle the initial planning, design and technical aspects of the web site... once the basic structure is ready, all of you can send in your feedback and we can set up a volunteer team of people who will be responsible for managing various aspects of the site. At the outset, the only cash we will need is for the registration of a domain name (e.g. www.eqbalahmad.com) and the hosting of the web site. A two-year domain name registration will cost approx $100. Hosting the site costs $25* upwards per month. We can begin with a $25 plan and upgrade when we need more space. I would love to have your comments, ideas etc. I am totally psyched to get this site up and running ASAP.

* Hosting charges have dropped considerably over the last few months.

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