Nawab Salimullah created the foundation for numerous leaders - BML

Fateha being ofered at the grave of Nabab Salimullah on his 110th death anniversary on Thursday 16 Jan Pic

Bangladesh Muslim League leaders said that Nawab Khwaja Salimullah donated land to provide technical education to the children of the exploited and deprived landless Muslims of British-ruled Bengal and established Nawab Ahsanullah Engineering College (later BUET) in the name of his late father with a cash donation of one lakh twenty thousand taka in 1908. He donated 18 acres of land in Azimpur, Dhaka, to provide basic education to orphan children and established Salimullah Muslim Orphanage with two schools in 1908 at his own expense, which is still in operation today. Many madrasas and hostels have been built in East Bengal with his financial donations.

The leaders said that when the racist Hindus led by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, the spokesperson of the exploitative Hindu landlords of East Bengal, launched a terrorist movement against the partition of Bengal to protect their vested interests, the British suppressed it in 1911. The Muslims of East Bengal were angered by this. Mutawalli Nawab Salimullah Bahadur donated about six hundred acres of land from the Khwaja Estate to establish the proposed Dhaka University for higher education for backward Muslims. The vice-chancellors of these two educational institutions, established on the land of the Khwaja Estate donated by Salimullah, were reluctant to accept it. The Muslim League leaders said that not only in terms of spreading education, but also in order to politically counter the Indian National Congress formed in Bombay on December 28, 1885 with the aim of establishing Hindutva, 33-year-old Nawab Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur planned to form a political party for the leaderless Muslims of British India. To this end, at the end of the 20th session of the three-day All India Muslim Education Conference held in Dhaka, the capital of the newly formed East Bengal and Assam provinces, on December 30, 1906, 2,423 prominent Muslim leaders from all over India unanimously formed the All-India Muslim League, which was the world's first Muslim political party, accepting the proposal of the host Nawab Khwaja Sulimullah. The leaders said that only after the All-India Muslim League was formed on the plan, initiative and proposal of Nawab Khwaja Sulimullah, did the Muslims of British India get the opportunity to unite politically. Among the leaders of the Muslim League from 1907 to 1947 who are still discussed in the political history of British India and Bengal are His Highness the Aga Khan, Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Haq, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Maulana Akram Khan, Hossain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Khwaja Nazimuddin, Pandit Abul Hashem, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, Khan A Sabur, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, among others. They all have the glory of dividing British India and creating the state of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, under the flag of the Muslim League. The mentioned leaders of the Muslim League are the original gurus of today's Bangladesh politics. By forming the Muslim League on that day, Nawab Khwaja Salimullah created the basic field for the production of numerous Muslim leaders.

Speaking at a discussion titled 'Nawab Salimullah's Contribution' held at the party's central office on Thursday afternoon under the chairmanship of party executive president Abdul Aziz Howlader, were standing committee members Atiqul Islam and Anwar Hossain Aburi, vice-president Nazrul Islam, advocate Aftab Hossain Molla, additional secretary general Akbar Hossain Pathan, organizing secretary Khan A Asad and joint organizing secretary Mahbubur Rahman Bhuiyan, labor secretary Engineer Osman Gani, publication secretary Abdul Alim, central leader Muhammad Ali, among others. -Press release