Ninety two years old Professor Masood Husain Khan had served as Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and Jamia Urdu, Aligarh.
Prof. A. R. Kidwai, former Governor of Haryana felicitated him. On this occasion, Prof. A. R. Kidwai released a book on Prof. Masood Husain Khan’s life and contribution.
Noted historian Prof. Irfan Habib said that AMU has a pride in producing such type of Urdu personality and said that Prof. Masood is a rationalist and he adopted scientific linguistic approach.
Prof. Imtiaz Hasnain, Chairman, Department of Linguistics at AMU said that prof. Masood Husain Khan is a doyen of Urdu linguistics and placed Urdu on the map of academic world of serious linguistic studies.
His magnum opus, a history of Urdu language, originally his PhD dissertation which was published in 1948, advanced a new theory of Urdu’s birth, contradicting all theories hitherto popular among scholars.
Prof. Imtiaz Hasnain mentioned that Prof. Masood Husain Khan represents the generation of phonologists, called the British phonologists, who developed the concept [t of prosodic features for describing the phonological structure of language.
He has authored several books including the rise and fall of Urdu in India.
Professor Siddiqur Rahman Kidwai, Secretary and Shahid Mahuli, Director of Ghalib Institute, New Delhi, Dr. Khalique Anjum, Secretary of Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu, Delhi also addressed the felicitation function.