Shaheed Hakim Mohammed Said (1920 - 1998)

An eminent, charismatic and striking figure, Shaheed Hakim Mohammed Said, was born in Delhi, India on 9th January 1920 in a noble family of hakims. His father, Hakim Hafiz Abdul Majeed, a renowned physician and herbalist, died in 1922 when Hakim Said was only 2 years old and his elder brother Hakim Abdul Hameed was 14. His wife Rabia Begum, a lady of strong determination, not only supported Hamdard, after the untimely death of his husband, but also made it stand on solid footings.
Hakim Said's ancestors came in the subcontinent from Kyrgyz, Xinjiang, China, in the reign of the Moghul emperor, Shah Alam. They first stayed at Peshawar for near about 80 years, then moved to Multan and finally settled down at Delhi, India. After partition of India in 1947, Hakim Said migrated to Pakistan with bare hands, at the age of 28, and reached Karachi on 9th January 1948 on his 29th birthday. He could not live in India, being a staunch supporter of Pakistan movement and left his birthplace to take part in the reconstruction of his new homeland, the land of his dreams. He came to Karachi, leaving behind his dear elder brother, his beloved mother and more important the institution of Hamdard, in the making of which he had made significant contribution. In the beginning he had to undergo many hardships and difficulties, suffered deprivation and disappointments for several months, but he did not lose heart and his courage was never lost. By the force of his willpower and determination he eventually succeeded in establishing the Hamdard in Karachi on 28th June 1948 without means and outer support. By virtue of his personal talents, hard labor and untiring efforts, he also succeeded in making the Hamdard a big enterprise and an important industry of herbal medicines and products. When Hamdard became a profitable house of herbal medicines and products of considerable size he converted it from a personal property into an Islamic Trust (Waqf) according to Islamic principles and reserved its profits for the welfare and betterment of the nation.
Hakim Said was undoubtedly a visionary and a physician par excellence, who treated near bout 5,000,000 patients in his lifetime. Reading the pulse of the patients, he also read the pulse of the nation and diagnosed the main cause of its sickness ie illiteracy and lack of modern knowledge. When he realized that his repeated requests for spreading of education and dissemination of knowledge in the country fell on deaf ears of the rulers and the education managers, he decided to walk alone and do something by his own for that purpose.