By Faisal Z. Siddiqi. 20 Feb 2023
Criminologist. Academician. Coach. Pioneer.
Cyberlaw, Gardening & Technology enthusiast.
Abbu, Uncle, Nana, Dada.
Inspiration.
1937 – 2023
Prof. Mohammad Zakaria Siddiqi, originally from Barabanki, in U.P., India, was the son of barrister Badshah Hussain, an Indian freedom fighter. He attended Lucknow university for undergraduate studies and joined Law for post graduate studies at Aligarh Muslim University in 1959. He joined AMU’s Law Faculty in 1961 and stayed there until his retirement in 1997 as the Dean of the Law School. In between, he had multi-year stints as a visiting law professor in various universities in Kashmir, Kenya, Nigeria, and Malaysia. After his retirement from Aligarh he spent a few years doing criminal procedure research at the Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University in Lucknow where he capped his illustrious career as an academic with the publication of his book “Prosecution system in the state of Uttar Pradesh” in 2012.
Professor Siddiqi coached and mentored legions of students throughout his career, many of whom went on to become legal authorities in their fields. Many of his students have served as advocates in the Supreme Court of India and justices in various state High Courts in India, Vice Chancellors of several universities, and many academics throughout India and the other Commonwealth countries where he taught. His passion for technology and authority on criminal law led him to explore the evolving legal implications of Cyber Law which he continued to explore in the last few years of his retired life.
He was with his family in California for the past few years. He is survived by his wife Rashida Siddiqi, a retired professor of Sociology also from AMU, his daughter Saba Zakaria Ahmad, and son, Faisal Zakaria Siddiqi.
Media Coverage
India Education Diary (PDF | Link)
AMU Press Release (PDF | Link)
TRIBUTES
By Dr. Faizan Mustafa 12 Feb 2023
Indian academic and legal scholar, long time student and protégé of Prof. Siddiqi.
I had gone to AMU with the sole purpose of studying history. My history teachers taught me so much and so well that I decided to join law after graduation. Zakaria Saheb taught me Indian Penal Code in the first year. He was an excellent teacher and therefore I opted for his elective in the second year ie Socio Economic Offences. In the third he taught me Code of Criminal Procedure. By now he had become quite affectionate towards me and therefore I was one of three students who opted for criminal law in LLM. He taught criminal law in the first year and sentencing in the second year. He encouraged me to join academia. I have said it number of times in Aligs’ gatherings that I was appointed as lecturer only because of him. He was keen to build our faculty as many seniors had gone abroad and elsewhere within India. He wanted to inject new blood. I got commonwealth scholarship due to my dissertation under Prof Zakaria Saheb. The interview board was impressed by the kind of issues we had raised. But within a year of my appointment, Zakaria Saheb left for Malaysia. I was feeling sad as we used to have long conversations in the evening in his house in medical colony.
This was the age of Jaspal Bhatti’s famous flop show. But my supervisor was different and a class in himself. He never asked to do anything. I did not check any of his copies or took any of his classes. Mrs Zakaria herself was a faculty member of Dept of Sociology and used to shower her affection on Zakaria Saheb’s students in general. I do not know how many hundreds of cups of tea prepared by her was taken by me. She too used to treat me her family member.
In one of his trips to Aligarh, I shared my insecurities with him. He told he that no one can refuse to give you tenure position. After few years, he joined back and again became the Dean. He retired thereafter. Years later I dedicated my book to him. My last meeting with him was in San Francisco in 2015. But the last conversation happened three weeks ago. He had become silent and was not talking to him. When he was asked to speak to him. He said Faizan is my shagird. Faisal immediately connected me to him and he spoke few sentences.He always treated me like his son and used to say that he is worried about my falling down as I walk too fast. I became a kind of a family member and used to guide Faisal in his debates.
Zakaria Saheb was a gem of a human being. He rarely got angry. He had great sense of humour and I used to love his classes. The kind of information and analysis he used to make of criminal law issues was mind boggling. He was the first to start sentencing as a course. He never published his thesis but it was indeed path breaking work. He was passionate about teaching and used to teach even criminology diploma students for hours together. My LLM classes even in June’s Ramzan used to be of three hours or more. He wouldn’t leave us even for noon prayer and tell us ‘let me first finish this discussion and then you can pray in your rooms.’ Because of him I am an ardent follower of classical criminal law principles and therefore have serious reservations about Justice Malimat Committee Report. I see no merit in retribution and deterrence. Number of his students served as Vice Chancellors such as Prof Riyaz Punjabi, Prof Mairajuddin, Prof S.C. Raina etc. Many became judges of the constitutional courts in India and abroad. Hundreds of Judicial Officers have fond memories of his effective teaching.
Whatever little I am today it is because of his training and because of him. I do hope that his students in Aligarh and elsewhere would continue to cherish his memories and those who are in teaching would remain passionate about teaching. Our primary job is to train our students. Legal fraternity has lost a great teacher. May Allah grant him highest place in Jannatul Firdous. I am not with the family at this hour of crises but my heart and mind are with them:
Hazaron Saal Nargis apni be nuri pe roti hai,
Bari mushkil se hota hai teacher Zakaria Saheb jaisa paida
By Kulsoom Ahmad, eldest granddaughter. 11 Feb 2023
A poem for AbbuNana.
By Faisal Zakaria Siddiqi, son. 19 Feb 2023
A short address at a prayer service.
Thank you for all of you to come over here today and pray with us for my father Prof. M Zakaria Siddiqi. Over the next few minutes, I will attempt to give you all a chance to see what ‘Abbu’ meant to us. I am sure many of you already know that Abbu was a law professor and probably some of you also know that he was also a very popular teacher in India and several countries, but to us he was much more than that. And I’d like to share some of those things briefly.
He was trained in the humanities and law but at heart he was a true engineer. As a teeanger in the 1950s, he once made a full working model of steam engine locomotive. He was great at book craft, back when that was a thing. He made a custom album for old coins, from scratch that still houses some old coins from the 1800s that we own, actually Kusoom has that, and when you hold that Album, you are equally struck by Abbu’s bookcraft skills just as much as you would take in the collection of old indian coins.
He was a great handyman about the house and would always tell me that I don’t even know how to hold a screwdriver, what kind of an engineer I was training to be. Over time in the last few years, I managed to finally change his perception in my favor, but it was not easy!
He loved gardening, and would be fascinated by long nature walks, finding different flowers and trying to grow them in his own gardens. Our garden in Medical Colony University housing in India was famous for a great grass patch because Abbu would literally spend hours every week weeding out the grass. This was a place and time where we couldn’t afford gardeners, so if you wanted a lush green garden, you needed to do it yourselves. And since we all moved and settled in America, Abbu would come over and plant fruit trees, and tend them over the years. Even today, one of the sweetest peaches in our home here is from a tree Abbu planted and tended for. Quite literally, the fruits of his labor will be available for us for years to enjoy InShaAllah.
Abbu loved to travel and see new places. As kids, we were privileged to have traveled to many countries at a time when that was not a thing in India, only because Abbu wanted to. And so he visited several Commonwealth countries where Abbu became a visiting law professor. But even within the US, he was always ready to see a new city, state, or natural or man-made monument.
Last but not the least, Abbu’s creativity with words and highly sociable personality was reflected in the many family wedding parody songs that he created for close family members. It was a unique skill and it made him extremely well liked among our extended family members. Always smiling, always with a sense of humor, and always humble.
I would consider it to be such an accomplishment, if I ever get to be half as accomplished as he was. He always said that “you should aim to plant a Tikli in the sky” – Tikli was his local word, maybe made up for a medal. It was his way of dreaming for outstanding success for his progeny. We are still trying…
Abbu got to live a full and accomplished life and it was our privilege that the last several years of his retirement he was surrounded by all his loved ones. May Allah forgive his sins and grant him entry into ‘Jannatul Firdaus’. And may He give us the patience to live without Abbu, and continue to support his legacy.