Kabir Chowdhury

Kabir Chowdhury (Bengali: কবীর চৌধুরী; 9 February 1923 – 13 December 2011) was a well-known academic, essayist, materialist, translator, cultural worker, civil society activist and a pioneer in the movement against fundamentalism in Bangladesh.

Early life and education

Kabir Chowdhury was born in Brahmanbaria of the then Tipperah district of United Bengal where his father was working as a civil servant. He grew up in an atmosphere of liberal ideas and secular thinking. His family hailed from Chatkhile of Noakhali district of Bangladesh and his father was a devout Muslim free from any trace of religious fanaticism. Kabir's many close friends in school belonged to the Hindu community. When he studied English literature at the Dhaka University in the early 1940s he was greatly impressed by the writings of H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, among others. During the second World War he was deeply troubled by the Nazi atrocities carried out in their concentration camps, the mass killing of Jews as a plan of ethnic cleansing and the destruction of all democratic norms. Kabir's faith in democracy, secularism and liberal thoughts grew stronger by the day and he found himself drawn to socialist ideology.

Kabir

Kabir (IAST: Kabīr) was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint, whose writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement and his verses are found in Sikh's scripture Adi Granth. His early life was in a Muslim family, but he was strongly influenced by his teacher, the Hindu bhakti leader Ramananda.

Kabir is known for being critical of both Hinduism and Islam, stating that the former were misguided by the Vedas and the latter by the Quran, and questioning their meaningless rites of initiation such as the sacred thread and circumcision respectively. During his lifetime, he was threatened by both Hindus and Muslims for his views. When he died, both Hindus and Muslims he had inspired claimed him as theirs.

Kabir suggested that True God is with the person who is on the path of righteousness, considered all creatures on earth as his own self, and who is passively detached from the affairs of the world. To know God, suggested Kabir, meditate with the mantra Rāma, Rāma.

Kabir's legacy survives and continued through the Kabir panth ("Path of Kabir"), a religious community that recognises him as its founder and is one of the Sant Mat sects. Its members, known as Kabir panthis.

Kabir (disambiguation)

Kabir (c. 1440–c. 1518) was a mystic poet and saint of India.

Kabir may also refer to:

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Abdul Kabir

Maulavi Mohammed Abdul Kabir is a senior member of the Taliban leadership. The United Nations reports that he was Second Deputy of the Taliban's Council of Ministers; Governor of Nangarhar Province; and Head of the Eastern Zone. The U.N. reports that Kabir was born between 1958 and 1963, in Paktia, Afghanistan, and is from the Zadran tribe. The U.N. reports that Kabir is active in terrorist operations in Eastern Afghanistan.

In April 2002 Abdul Razzak told the Associated Press Kabir was believed to have fled Nangarhar to Paktia, along with Ahmed Khadr

The Chinese News Agency Xinhua reported that Abdul Kabir was captured in Nowshera, Pakistan, on July 16, 2005. Captured with Abdul Kabir were his brother Abdul Aziz, Mullah Abdul Qadeer, Mullah Abdul Haq, and a fifth unnamed member of the Taliban leadership.

On July 19, 2006, United States Congressman Roscoe G. Bartlett listed Abdul Kabir as a former suspected terrorist who the US government no longer considers a threat.

In spite of these reports, intelligence officials quoted in Asia Times indicated Kabir and other senior Taliban leaders may have been in North Waziristan, Pakistan during Ramadan 2007, planning an offensive in southeastern Afghanistan.