Handbook of Urdu Literature

“The book makes for a delightful reading and that, as he proceeds, the reader will marvel at the ease and intimacy with which the author moves in two different worlds of thought— those of the East and the West. What, in the absence of this brief note of introduction, might escape him is the remarkable fact that the book is not the production of an elderly college don, but of a woman of comparatively tender years who is a member of that community in India which was admittedly slow in exchanging the education provided at the indigenous maktabs and madressahs, for that of the colleges and universities modeled on the educational institutions of the West. And as a former Chancellor of the Calcutta University, it gives me sincere pleasure to be able to congratulate her on being the first Muslim to graduate from that university with Honours in English Literature, and the first Muslim lady from any country to have been awarded the degree of Ph. D. of the London University.” – Zetland