At a recent top level conference in Washington, D.C, after I gave my key note address two sweet old ladies came up to where Zeenat my wife and I were standing and said, “that was good, but you must meet and learn from this young Muslim female scholar at Cambridge” who writes about and practices building bridges between religions and cultures.
“Who are you referring to?” I asked with a smile, as I already knew the answer. “Someone called Hoti,” they said tentatively. “Dr Amineh Hoti,” we said proudly, “is our daughter.”
Amineh has brought great joy to us and is a role model for her marvelous siblings, and many others besides. Her birth was especially auspicious and we called her our “miracle child.”I had been invited as chief guest by her Murree school for the annual “passing out” event. Imagine my joy when I presented Amineh a cup as head prefect and then heard her speak on behalf of the school. . Both Zeenat and I were thrilled as Zeenat had been given the cup as head girl when she was at the same school.
As I served over the years in different posts in Pakistan and also at universities in the UK and US, Amineh traveled with me. Amineh graduated from the London School of Economics and afterwards married Arsallah Khan Hoti and had children of her own. In spite of being a housewife, mother of two small children and teacher,she decided to study for her PhD in anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and conducted fieldwork among Pukhtun women in Pakistan.
Amineh faced the frustration and discouragement from her own society with patience and courage. During the difficult PhD period Amineh would joke with me, “Why can’t you be a typical South Asian father and tell me to stay home and cook?” But I would tell her to please finish the PhD and that this is all I would ever ask of her. Doing so would be following the Islamic compulsion to seek ilmor knowledge and promote peace.
Imagine our joy when she successfully completed the PhD (published by Cambridge University Press in 2006 as Sorrow and Joy Among Muslim Women: The Pukhtuns of Northern Pakistan.) Overcoming the hurdles Amineh was appointed Director of the first Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations in Cambridge which she co-founded and which was part of the larger Abrahamic Centre. Prince Hassan of Jordan is among the centre’s patrons. As Director of the centre she pioneered new courses and taught them to imams, rabbis, and priests. She is a long standing associate at the Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge. In July 2008 The Sunday Times published a special feature with pictures called “Relative Values: Akbar Ahmed and his daughter Amineh.”
In 2010, Amineh moved back to Pakistan. She has an affinity with the KP province because her mother is the granddaughter of the former Wali of Swat and husband is from Mardan, but she celebrates the ethnic, religious and gender diversity of Pakistan. She set up the first teaching centre for interfaith dialogue in Pakistan at Forman Christian College in Lahore and designed a new course—Ilm, Adabaur Insaaniyat (Knowledge, Mutual Respect and Humanity).She began translating her works like “Valuing Diversity: Towards Mutual Respect and Understanding,” which was distributed to 2,500 of the UK’s 5,000 schools, into Urdu and Pashto for Pakistani schools. She serves in Pakistan as Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad and is an official advisor to the Council of Islamic Ideology of Pakistan.
Amineh has published widely—recently contributing a chapter to the important new book Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Thinkers Engage with Recent Papal Initiatives—convened and presented at many international conferences, given peace building presentations to the Pakistan Army and contributed to its Hilal magazine, attended top Islamic conferences in Pakistan and those hosted by the Kings of Saudi Arabia and Spain and the royal family in Abu Dhabi, spoken at the White House, and her interviews and articles are featured extensively in Pakistani and international media.
