Background
He was born on 7 March 1938 in Amroha, India, and brought up in Karachi.
He was born on 7 March 1938 in Amroha, India, and brought up in Karachi.
He did his Doctorate.Litt in Pakistan Studies in 2003 after doing his Doctor of Philosophy in the same subject in 1992. He is the first Doctor of Philosophy and Doctorate.Litt in Pakistan Studies in Pakistan.
He died on 9 January 2013 at Karachi, Pakistan. He was able to use English, French, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, Seraiki and Urdu. Ali Siddiqui was a prominent Urdu critic.
He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Institute of Business and Technology, Karachi.
He also served as Dean Faculty of Education & Social Sciences at Hamdard University, Karachi for six years. He taught at Karachi University for a number of years.
He served as the Director of Quaid-e-Azam Academy for six years. Ali Siddiqui has penned more than 100 research articles
He has 16 books to his cr, two of them Tawazum and Croce ki Sarguzash, were adjudged as the Best of the Years 1976 and 1979 respectively.
He has been awarded the Presidential Award of Pride of Performance for his contribution to literature in 2003. He was selected as CASA (Canadian Association of South Asian Studies) Scholar of the year 1984, the second Pakistani to get this honour. He has delivered lectures in many overseas universities such as the School of Oriental & American Studies London University, Carlton University, Canada, the University of Toronto, Canada, Oslo University, Norway.
Among creative writers Faiz Ahmed Faiz regarded him as the only critic from Pakistan the others being Doctor Narang, Doctor Zoe Ansari & Doctor Qamar Rais from India.
Journalist Khalid Ahmed wrote: Most people think Muzaffar Ali Syed was the most learned man in Pakistan. Among the living, Muhammad Ali Siddiqui or Ariel of Dawn is undoubtedly the most learned manitoba
He holds his own compared with the late Syed who created waves more often by being controversial. Not that Siddiqui is non-controversial.
His assessments of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Allama Iqbal have been heretical but have escaped attention because his scholarship is unassailable and we generally don"t like reading controversial things if they are deeply scholarly.
If you can"t face a critic, ignore him.".
He was a member of many national and international organisations such as: Pakistan Writers Guild, Pakistan, Association Des Litteraire Critiques International, Paris, European Union of Writers and Scientist, Rome, International Association of Literary Critics (AILC), Stavanger, Norway, Majlis-i-Farough-i-Urdu Adab, Doha, Qatar.