The Institute of Business Management (IoBM) held a Condolence meeting in memory of Ambassador Najmuddin A. Shaikh on Tuesday, 22nd April 2025. The meeting, presided over by Talib Syed Karim of IoBM, was attended by the Late Ambassador’s brother, Air Marshal ® Raziuddin Shaikh, and his former colleagues resident in Karachi, faculty members and students of International Relations.
The late Ambassador Najmuddin A. Shaikh was paid glowing tributes by the speakers, prominent among whom were Ambassador Mustafa Kamal Qazi, G.R. Baloch, Talib Syed Karim and Dr. Huma Baqai while Air Marshal Raziuddin A. Shaikh shared recollections of his illustrious brother. The audience listened to the speakers with rapt attention in an aura of serenity and sadness reigning the occasion.
‘We are here with heavy hearts to honour the life and legacy of a remarkable individual – a brilliant diplomat, a statesman, a scholar and a guiding light for countless lives, remarked speakers one after the other. His intellect, integrity, vision, professionalism as a career diplomat, his exceptional commitment and dedicated services to the country, and for the cause of international peace and stability were eulogized bringing in focus his long career as our envoy to Canada, Germany, USA and Iran and the country’s Foreign Secretary from 1994-1997.
With a greater sense of loss, one of our senior colleagues, Ambassador Mustafa Kamal Qazi, shared his recollections of the Late Ambassador Najmuddin A. Shaikh, reckoning his high standards of professionalism and distinct personal qualities that earned him respect and admiration from friends and relatives both at home and abroad.
He shared with the students and faculty members that the Late Ambassador Shaikh continued to promote the country’s interests with the same commitment after his retirement. He was part of the track-two talks to cover the entire gamut of bilateral relations, including the complex dispute of Jammu and Kashmir between Pakistan and India. The Late Ambassador Shaikh also remained engaged in the backdoor talks with the Afghan leaders to bring peace and stability to the war-ravaged Afghanistan.
When I sit back with a rear-mirror view of my encounters and experiences with such persons, my heart goes out to reckon them as great people of intellect, intelligence, professional caliber, kindness, generosity, and dignity
Some colleagues recalled Ambassador Najmuddin Shaikh as a warm, humble, caring, and kind person of pleasant disposition who led by personal example. Dr. Huma Baqai suggested compiling the writings of Late Najmuddin Shaikh, which he contributed to the print media on international issues, for publication in a book. The book, with its well-researched and well-argued contents, would make a rich contribution to the diplomatic literature and history of Pakistan, imparting a valuable perspective to Pakistan Studies in our educational institutes.
Many of us didn’t know that Ambassador Shaikh, after his retirement, remained associated with IOBM University as its Chancellor. Ambassador G.R. Baloch remarked that as the Chancellor and later as Director Global and Regional Studies at IOBM University, he inspired generations of students to dream boldly and lead with [confidence] and that under his stewardship, IOBM flourished as a hub of intellectual curiosity, producing leaders who now carry forward his legacy of excellence’. His contribution to the University was also profoundly recognized by the Chief Executive, Mr. Talib Syed Karim.
Since the Late Ambassador Shaikh, after his retirement, had spent a few of his valuable years in the IOBM, the University could undertake the task of collecting his articles from the Dawn offices, sifting and compiling them for publication as a book, as suggested by Dr. Huma Baqai. The book, I am confident, would serve the intellectual curiosity of the young teachers and students. This would be the greatest tribute to the legacy of a former Chancellor of the University.
Having listened to all the high-sounding eulogy of a lost colleague, I left the venue with a feeling of an unquenched intellectual thirst. I have had the privilege of knowing closely a few of our senior colleagues in the Foreign Service. I have read some of our former diplomats, including Iqbal Akhund, Agha Shahi, and Sultan Muhammad Khan, and closely interacted with Late Ambassadors Shaharyar M. Khan and Najmuddin A. Shaikh, whom we lost one after the other. They were intellectual giants of extraordinary capacity and stamina. They were people of a distinctly matchless class. Their personae could not be grasped in a few speeches.
What I feel is that these people just dissolve from their physical presence into a pleasant reminiscence indelibly etched in a corner of our memory like carvings in stone, as fresh as the morning breeze, as fragrant as spring flowers, as beautiful as the image of a bright moon in dark waters. Though physically beyond our approach, we can yet feel their presence; their support in moments of distress and happiness; we can converse with them; we can hear them. They are invisible but can be seen through the eyes of our heart and soul.
They appear like a choir of angels - free from any anguish, any prejudice, sharing smiles and radiating goodness as was their wont when they were with us. They are away from us, yet we feel them among us. We cannot physically touch them, but we can feel their touch. Some were outside the family, but surely closer than any blood relationship. I was lucky to have come across such a gem of a person in the trajectory of my life from a string of familial relatives, friends, and senior colleagues. They gave more and did more for me than I deserved; their affection was unstinted.
Today, when I sit back with a rear-mirror view of my encounters and experiences with such persons, my heart goes out to reckon them as great people of intellect, intelligence, professional caliber, kindness, generosity, and dignity. There was love in their anger, affection in their admonition, sincerity in their counseling, and wisdom in their words. They were deliberate guides, deliberate groomers, and deliberate mentors free from any prejudice or pretense.
Our colleague, and elder brother, Sir Najmuddin. A. Shaikh was one of the brightest stars of this constellation of the persons I looked up as beacon of guide and support. His legacy will continue guiding us.