Photo courtesy of Farah Naim

Choudhri Mohammed Naim, better known as C.M. Naim, passed away in Hyde Park, Chicago, on July 9, 2025. Naim—called Naim Sahib by his students and colleagues, using the Urdu honorific—was 89. An emeritus professor in the Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations (SALC), which he first joined more than 60 years ago before retiring in 2001, Naim was a prolific author, cultural critic, and mentor to many across his long career, and widely regarded as the founder of Urdu studies in North America.

Rochona Majumdar, George V. Bobrinskoy Professor and SALC chair, joins the chorus mourning the loss of Naim’s “towering presence” in Urdu studies, noting that “even after his retirement, generations of students treated Naim-sahib’s home as a veritable pilgrimage.” One such student was Shariq Khan, a current PhD candidate in SALC, who developed a deep relationship with Naim despite never formally taking classes from him, visiting him regularly in his Hyde Park home. “He was always surrounded by the latest that was being written in Urdu,” Khan recalls, “and he went out of his way to congratulate and encourage young writers,” a practice that reflected Naim’s “egalitarian ideals”: “he would also be the happiest to know about any new good work, especially coming from young students. I would often be surprised by how easily he would be amazed at whatever I was doing.”

This easy warmth and generous mentorship were tempered by a capacity for sharp critique, Khan remembers, and a refusal to tolerate “exclusion, pettiness and mediocrity.” His friend and colleague Muzaffar Alam, George V. Bobrinskoy Professor Emeritus in SALC, notes that “Naim questioned and discussed the validity of several political and social issues concerning Islam, Muslim politics, and Pakistan,” with A Killing in Ferozewala: Essays / Polemics / Review (City Press, 2013) serving as a prime example of his political engagement. Naim’s publications—too numerous to list here—feature a vast range of genres, emphasizes Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History and SALC, “ranging widely from the autobiographical, studies of humor in Urdu poetry of the eighteenth century, to his recent, pioneering book on crime fiction in Urdu.” Deeply committed to writing for public forums, Naim was also a regular contributor to the major media sites Scroll.in and TheWire.in, and has two additional books that will be published posthumously.

Naim’s diversity of interests and enthusiasm for writing is a common refrain. Khan recalls that “if he found a new book that he liked, he would tell everyone about it,” most likely procuring a copy to share with friends and proteges. James Nye, the former Bibliographer for Southern Asia in the UChicago Library, notes that “Naim was ardent in his concern that collections of Urdu books and periodicals, especially those in private collections, should be preserved and made accessible. I still hear him encouraging and cajoling about the importance of collections in Mahmudabad, Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan, and elsewhere in South Asia.” This commitment had an indelible impact on the Library’s South Asian holdings, explains Nye: “It was his guidance, collaboration, and insistence that oriented much of the Urdu preservation work librarians and archivists have been involved in for over four decades”—efforts that continue today.

Naim’s two children—son Tahir (TJ) and daughter Farah—grew up in Hyde Park. TJ credits his father as “an early example of a father taking his children to work while his wife worked,” and has fond memories of playing with his sister in the SALC faculty lounge in Foster Hall while his father wrote in his office nearby. His importance to the SALC community was evident as early as 1971, when he attempted to resign from UChicago before moving back to India. TJ remembers, “the department chair at the time declined to accept his resignation and told him to take a leave for a year,” promising that “if he still wanted to resign after that year, then he could.” That offer proved critical to the future of SALC and to Urdu studies, as Naim ultimately returned to Chicago after his year away.

Although retired for many years, Majumdar notes, Naim still “regularly attended Southern Asia seminars and events,” serving as “a connection between India, Pakistan, and a vast South Asian diaspora.” This breadth of expertise was also reflected “in his writing and teaching,” adds Majumdar, which “combined the deep past of Islam with modern Urdu.” The legacy of his contributions—to the University and to the field—cannot be overstated: “Naim-sahib,” Majumdar explains, “first put UChicago on the global scholarly map of Urdu and Islamicate Studies.” Even two decades after retiring, he remained a vital member of the community in SALC and Hyde Park more broadly, and his presence will be deeply missed.

Naim’s colleagues in SALC are hosting a small condolence meeting on Tuesday, October 14, from 5:00 to 7:00pm in Foster 103.