In this post we will talk about two topics. One is the dearth of technical books in Urdu and second is the dearth of text books in any language by Pakistani authors at undergraduate and graduate level.
I have a habit. Every few days I like to sit in front of my book shelf and look at my collection. Last time I did that, my wandering eyes got stuck at one book which I had not noticed in while. It was my very own and very dear book of ‘bunyaadi (Basic) Engineering Drawing’ by M Iqbal Khan.
It was first published in 1978 and it used to be one of our text books in First-Year of Engineering(1990). Most of you may know that students in Pakistani Engineering colleges go through 40+ courses in their 4-year degree program but what may surprise you is that none of the text books for these courses are written by Pakistani authros — except for two that I know of. One of them is the bunyaadi (Basic) Engineering Drawing. This was also the only text book written in Urdu which was taught at undergrad level.
That was 20 years ago. Things must’ve changed by now. Hopefully for better. We all know that AutoCad and Solid Works have completely replaced the skills of technical drawing by hand and geometrical tools. No wonder the best cheap drawing tablet is also on the rise to make these digital illustrations possible.
The set of tools called ‘French curves’ may now appear as a reference to human anatomy to many. See a photo of French Curves here.
As I am writing this post, the book of M. Iqbal Khan is next to me and I am going to pick some ‘cheeda cheeda’ (selected) highlights from it. Iqbal Khan was an instructor at Jamia Millia Polytechnic Institute of Malir, Karachi and later taught at Balochistan Engineering College in Khuzdar. In the first 10 years of its publication (1978-88), this book sold 33550 copies.
The very first lesson is about ‘lettering’ and step by step the book proceeds to teach concepts of drawings conic sections, orthogonal projections, mechanical sectioning, threads (called chooriaN – literally meaning bangles in Urdu) etc.
Look at the image to the right above. It teaches how to draw mechanical threads.
I don’t want to bore our versatile readership with technical terms but this book was indeed the one which impressed myself and my colleagues a lot and we learnt our technical drawing concepts from it.
Besides the above mentioned book there is one more text book of graduate level book by a Pakistani author that I know of. It is called the ‘Introduction to Statistical Theory’ and is written by Professor Sher Mohammad Chaudhary.This book was a text book for Statistics for us in Bachelors. I know this book is also a prescribed text book Masters level programs.
Ok. so while I started this post with a narrow narrative about Iqbal Khan’s book, I now want to broaden up the scope. How about you let us know if you are privy to seeing or studying any other text book by a Pakistani author whether in English or Urdu at degree level. Let us know of the books and we will list them here.
I am aware that there are several technical books by Pakistani authors – but most of them are for reference studies. We are looking for names of text books.
So far the list is 16 books long. anymore names? sahibaan aur qadardaan?
List of Degree Level Text Books by Pakistani Authors:
1. bunyaadi Engineering Drawing by Mohammad Iqbal Khan
2. Introduction to Statistical Theory Part I and II by Professor Sher Mohammad Chaudhary, Published by Ilmi Kitab Khana
3. Mathematical Methods by S.M.Yousuf, Published by Ilmi Kitab Khana, 1999.
4. Calculus and Analytical Geometry by S.M.Yousuf
5. Comprehensive Book of Mechanics by Q.K. Ghori published by A.H. Publishers, Lahore
6. Analog and Digital Circuit Design by Shahzad Mahmood. First edition 2003.
7. Amplifiers and Receiver Circuits prescribed by NISTE (National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Islamabad. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2002
8. Basic Engineering Drawing and CAD prescribed by NISTE (National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Islamabad. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2002
9. Basics of Engnieering Drawing by Zahid Ahmed, Muhammad Ashraf and Shahid Ahmed. Published by Prince Book Depot, 2005.
10. Electronic Media published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 1998
11. Irrigation and Drainage Engineering by Iqtidar Siddiqui. published by Oxford 2007. ISBN 9780195473568.
12. Surface Water Hydrology by N.M.Awan, 2003
13. Surveying and Leveling – for architecture Technology – with Lab instruction manual. Prescribed by NISTE (National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Islamabad. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2001
14. Theory of Automation and Computation by Sikandar Hayat Khiyal. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2004
15. Voice of Civil Engineering by Abdul Hasan and Sarah Haider, 2003
16. Electronic Circuits and Devices by Dr. Manzar Saeed.
17. Fault Diagnosis and Testing of Digital Circuits with an introduction to Error Control Coding by Dr. Altaf Mukati. Published by HEC
References:
1. Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Karachi and Islamabad.
2. National Institute of Science and Technical Education (NISTE), Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan.
3. Oxford University Press, Pakistan – Books Catalog for Higher Education
4. National Book Foundation, Pakistan
Owais,
B.L.Thereja – I have not seen that in a while. Did you know that he was a librarian when he wrote the book (might have got an engineering degree later)!
I’ve never come across a text book written by Pakistani authors before :(.
Midhat, Dr. Manzar Saeed’s book is called ‘Electronic Devices and Circuits’. Thanks for reminding me. I’ve added it to my list above. He is a well known name in Electroincs. He has/had been a professor at UET, Lahore and later head of dept at Govt college for Women University, Lahore.
Sridhar.
Thanks for your comment.
All our text books at Degree level were/are in English except for this single ‘Engg Drawing’ book. With the current CAD applications now available, this book is also outdated and is probably not taught anymore. There is a serious dearth of Urdu books at undergrad/grad level. Those which are available are mostly translations from English.
By the way a few of our text books were by Indian authors especially B.P.Lathi for communications, Kanetkar for surveying and B.L.Theraja for traditional EE are widely used across Pak universities.
We have a public university called ‘Federal Urdu University’ with campuses in Karachi and Islamabad. It was founded as a college in 1960s with an aim to teach advanced courses in Urdu. (upto Masters Level). I’ve provided a link to it in reference section of the post above. However, I am not able to find any reference to their text books or to confirm if they indeed use books written in Urdu in their degree courses. I will update my post as soon as I could get some confirmation.
Urdu University’s web page is in English – which may be good for International marketing – but also gives a message that Urdu is not prefered at technical and higher levels of studies.
There’s an electronics book by Manzar Saeed. Cant remember the title. I read some of it to cover the semiconductors part in my electronics course. Looks like a genuine manuscript to me, as opposed to many local ripoffs of popular foreign titles