Hakim Abdul Hameed was born on 14 September 1908 in Delhi, the elder son of Hakim Hafiz Abdul Majeed, who had founded the Hamdard Dawakhana in 1906. The name Hamdard — “one who shares the pain” — became the guiding principle of his life. After completing his studies at Tibbia College, Delhi, in 1930, he took his place in the family clinic and began practising Unani medicine with quiet skill and deep compassion.

When Partition came in 1947, his younger brother, Hakim Muhammad Saeed, migrated to Pakistan. Abdul Hameed remained in India and assumed full responsibility for Hamdard. He converted the enterprise into a waqf — a charitable trust — so that its profits would serve education, research and the poor. Under his guidance the small Unani pharmacy grew into Hamdard Laboratories, one of the foremost manufacturers of traditional medicines in the country.

He was not content with commerce. He founded the Institute of History of Medicine and Medical Research, the Hamdard National Foundation, Majeedia Hospital, and a constellation of educational institutions. In 1989 he established Jamia Hamdard, becoming its founder-chancellor. Later he also served as Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University. Through these institutions he sought to give Unani medicine a modern scientific foundation while preserving its classical wisdom.

Patients and colleagues remembered a man of simple habits and vast vision. One young physician, watching him examine a long line of the poor in the clinic, once asked how he found the strength for such work day after day. Hameed replied gently:

“The patient who comes to us is already carrying a burden. Our duty is to lighten it, not to measure the hours.”

In 1965 the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri. In 1992 he received the Padma Bhushan. The Soviet Union honoured him with the Avicenna Award in 1983 for his contributions to traditional medicine.

Hakim Abdul Hameed died on 22 July 1999. In the story of Indian healers he stands as a bridge between the classical Unani tradition and the institutions of independent India — a physician who believed that medicine must heal not only the body but also society, and who built enduring structures of learning and care so that the sharing of pain would continue long after him.