20/06/2020
100th Professor Ahmad Hasan Dani's birth anniversary is being celebrated today.
Dani was born in Basna, a village near Raipur, in central India. He studied Sanskrit at Banaras Hindu University, graduating as its first Muslim student in 1944. He excavated with Wheeler at Moenjodaro and Gandhara and worked at the Department of Archaeology of British India at the Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, before leaving for East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1947.
From 1950 to 1962, Dani was East Bengal's superintendent of archaeology, a history professor at University of Dhaka and the curator at Dhaka museum. He compiled definitive works on Bengali Muslim architecture between completing his PhD thesis on the prehistory of eastern India at University of London in 1955, and working as a research fellow at the School of African and Oriental Studies (1958-59).
Dani left for University of Peshawar, and created the department of archaeology. In 1971 he established the social sciences faculty at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, serving as dean until his retirement in 1980. In 1993 he established the Islamabad museum.
In 1997 Dani became founding director of the
He was fluent in 35 languages. The first Muslim student of Banaras Hindu University,
Dani scored highest in the graduation exams and received the J. K. Gold Medal from that university in 1944.
Among other national awards, he received Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1969, Aizaz-e-Kamal in 1992 and Hilal-e-Imtiaz in 2000 from the Government of Pakistan. In 2004, he was awarded the title of 'Distinguished National Professor' by the Higher Education Commission.
Dani's many international awards included: the Légion d'honneur in 1998, the Aristotle Silver Medal, UNESCO in 1997, the Order of the Merit, Government of Germany in 1996, the Knight Commander, Government of Italy in 1994, the Palmes Academiques in 1990, Government of France, and the Gold Medal, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh in 1986.
Besides all, Prof. Dani was instrumental in setting up the
