Remembering Muhammad Hamidullah (Obituary) (Obituary‪)‬

It was a damp fall morning in Paris. The year was 1983. I had wandered through the streets for almost an hour and had finally found the apartment where Professor Muhammad Hamidullah lived a solitary life. I knocked at the door but there was no answer. I waited for a while and knocked again. When no answer came, I left a note and returned to my hotel. Later that day, when I came back to my hotel after a long stroll, I found a small note on the door of my room: "I am sorry to have missed you. I was in my apartment, but my hearing is not good anymore. Please accept my apologies. Hamidullah." I was touched by the humility of tone and by the fact that the old Professor had taken the trouble to come to my hotel and leave the message; we had never met before and he did not even know me. I went back to his apartment and had a memorable meeting. He was as lucid in his thoughts as in his books and his grasp of contemporary realities of the Muslim world was amazing.