The Muslim community has lost an inimitable adornment
The passing of N.M.M. Izeth Hussain removes one of few illustrious civil servants who embodied great intellectual grasp, exacting personal integrity and consequential professionalism in our nation’s public service.
A career diplomat by profession, he served his country with great distinction but retained a low profile that belied his quiet efficiency and stellar achievements.
As a member of the Board of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies he played a pioneering role in its formative years from 1989 to 1994. Hussain was an old boy of St Joseph’s College, and graduated from the University of Ceylon, with an English (Hons) degree.
In retirement, he reached unmatched distinction as a public thinker defending, upholding and promoting the essential values of a plural, modern democracy. In later years he emerged a prolific writer with a vast number of articles, monographs and lectures to his credit.
His academic forays covered a wide spectrum including Islam, the present predicament of Muslims of Sri Lanka. Hussain’s was a unique and an objective voice that bore the brunt of a long and arduous struggle to flesh out the truth during the times of mindless attacks on the minority groups within and outside the Muslim community.
Yet, he also found time to focus on subjects dear to him such as Urdu literature and Islamic culture in South Asia.
His often published positions on issues of national significance were masterpieces of persuasive advocacy, elegant prose and above all beacons of wisdom that avoided rhetoric and insisted on reason.
Hussain in his years of retirement developed himself into a sharp social critic. He called a spade, a spade, a racist, a racist, regardless of the faith or colour they belonged to, including those from his own community.
I remain an unabashed and an ardent admirer of his principled life that made him an inimitable adornment of the Muslim community of Sri Lanka. I convey my deep sympathies to his family in their bereavement.
May he attain Jinnathul firdhouse.