Sufia Ahmed
| National Professor |
| Teaching, Academician |
Full Name: Dr. Sufia Ahmed
Affiliation: Dhaka University
Current Position: Deceased
Date of Birth: November 20, 1932
Date of Death: April 09, 2020
Place of Birth: Bangladesh
Home District: Faridpur
Nationality: Bangladeshi
Profile:
Sufia Ahmed (20 November 1932 - 09 April 2020) was a Bangladeshi academician. Her birth name is Sufia Ibrahim. She was selected as the first female National Professor of Bangladesh in 1994. She was awarded the Ekushey Padak in 2002 by the Government of Bangladesh for his contribution to the language movement and Sufia Kamal Award in 2015.
Sufiya was born in the Faridpur District to Muhammad Ibrahim, a justice and former vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka and Lutfunnessa Ibrahim. Her husband was former advisor to the caretaker government Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed. Sufia passed matriculation in 1948 in Private and later passed intermediate from Brojomohun College in Barisal. In 1950, she got admitted to Islamic history and culture department of Dhaka University. In 1943-44, her father Muhammad Ibrahim taught in the Law Department of Dhaka University. Since then, she dreamed of becoming a teacher. After completing her PhD from London in 1961, she joined Dhaka University as a lecturer in her own department, Department of Islamic History and Culture. She became a professor in 1983.
Sufia took part in the Language Movement in 1952. She was one of the female forerunners to break section 144 and deny the curfew in DU Campus on February 21, 1952.
Sufia joined as a faculty member at the Department of Islamic History and Culture of the University of Dhaka in 1961. She served as visiting Professor at Bosphorus University in Istanbul, Turkey, and also as a Fullbright Visiting Professor at Alverno College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Besides attending numerous conferences and seminars and contributing learned papers on gender issues, she represented her country as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1969 and 1979, and to the UNESCO General Conference in 1983.
Sufia served as a member of board of the directors of Bangladesh Bank. She was the president of Bangladesh Itihas Parishad.
On July 18, 2004, Sufia established a trust fund titled "Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Memorial Foundation" at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Tasneem Raina Fateh, the two worthy children of Sufia Ahmed, established a trust fund titled "National Professor Dr. Sufia Ahmed Memorial Foundation" on November 20, 2020 at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
Sufia died on April 9, 2020 while undergoing treatment at a hospital in the capital. She was 87 years old at the time of her death.
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