Fazlur Rahman Malik, Pakistani philosopher, scholar, and academic (b. 1919)
Fazlur Rahman Malik (Urdu: فضل الرحمان ملک; September 21, 1919 – July 26, 1988), commonly known as Fazlur Rahman, was a modernist scholar and Islamic philosopher from today's Pakistan. Fazlur Rahman is renowned as a prominent liberal reformer of Islam, who devoted himself to educational reform and the revival of independent reasoning (ijtihad). His works are subject of widespread interest in Muslim-majority countries.After teaching in Britain and Canada, Rahman was appointed head of the Central Institute of Islamic Research of Pakistan in 1963. Although his works were widely respected by other Islamic reformers, they were also heavily criticized by conservative scholars as being overtly liberal. This was quickly exploited by opponents of his political patron, General Ayub Khan, and led to his eventual exile in the United States. He left Pakistan in 1968 for the United States where he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Chicago.