The Keeper of the Unani Flame

In the princely state of Bhopal, on 1 July 1940, a child was born into a family that had long practised the ancient art of Unani medicine. His grandfather Hakim Syed Karam Husain, his father Hakim Syed Fazlur Rahman, and his uncle were all physicians of the traditional system. The boy was named Syed Zillur Rahman, and from the beginning the language of healing was spoken in his home.

He studied at Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow and then at Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College of Aligarh Muslim University. In 1961 he began his academic career as a Demonstrator at the same college. Over the next four decades he rose to Lecturer, Reader, Professor, Chairman of the Department of Ilmul Advia (the science of materia medica), and finally Dean of the Faculty of Unani Medicine. For eighteen years he guided the department that trains the next generation of hakims.

His true passion lay in preserving and illuminating the history of Unani medicine. He authored more than forty-five books, edited journals, and recovered forgotten texts. In 2000 he founded the Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences in Aligarh—a living institution that houses a vast library, museums of medical history and oriental arts, and research centres dedicated to the rational study of traditional systems. The Academy became a meeting place for scholars from India and abroad, a bridge between the medieval wisdom of Ibn Sina and the needs of the modern world.

He travelled widely—Spain, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkey, the Arab countries, and beyond—sharing knowledge and gathering manuscripts. He helped establish new Tibbia colleges and worked to keep Unani medicine relevant and respected. In recognition of this lifelong service the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2006. Other honours followed: the Yash Bharti Award, multiple Urdu Academy awards, the Ibn Sina Award, and a Certificate of Honour from the President of India for his contribution to Persian scholarship.

Even after formal retirement he continued as honorary treasurer of Aligarh Muslim University and as the guiding spirit of the Ibn Sina Academy. Today, in the quiet halls of that academy, among shelves of rare books and instruments of healing, the flame that Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman tended still burns—steady, scholarly, and full of the living memory of a medicine that has served humanity for centuries.