KARACHI - The Sindh Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a bill (into law) enhancing the status of the province’s oldest alma mater, Sindh Madrassatul Islam, to university.

Pir Mazharul Haq, who is also the parliamentary leader of the ruling PPP in Sindh, had tabled the bill. Lawmakers hoped that the grant of the status of varsity to the historical educational institution would help make it an iconic learning place for the youth.
Tapping into the history of the pre-Partition era during the assembly’s Thursday’s proceedings, Sindh Senior Minister for Education Pir Mazharul Haq informed the House that Khan Bahadur Hassan Ali Effendi, great grandfather of President Asif Ali Zardari, had, while following in the footprints of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, established the Sindh Madrassatul Islam.
He said that giving the status of varsity to the one-and-a-half century old educational institution was a tribute to its founder. “The institute is the mother of all educational institutions in the province. Even the country’s founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, got education from the Sindh Madrassatul Islam.”
Pir also said that his grandfather Pir Elahi Bakhsh, Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidyatullah and other important personalities also studied at the said institution.
Recalling that former slain premier Benazir Bhutto had longed for this status to the Sindh Madrassatul Islam, the minister said her wish had been fulfilled today by the incumbent government on the directives of President Zardari.
Lauding the services of Effendi and other founding fathers of the historical institution, Pir said that the establishment of Sindh Madrassatul Islam during the British Raj was not less than a miracle, since there had been no modern educational institution for the Muslims of Sindh at that time. “The Sindh Madrassatul Islam brought the Muslims of Sindh into the mainstream by producing leadership in every sphere of life,” concluded the senior minister.
MQM’s parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed said that the status of varsity to the Sindh Madressatul Islam should have been given much ago.  Public Accounts Committee chairman Jam Tamachi Unar said that “we have lots of universities and the government should also tend to their needs of basic facilities”. He also laid stress on the need for imparting quality education.
Ahmed Ali Shah of the PPP, while lauding the government for granting status of varsity to the province’s oldest institution, proposed several facilities for it.