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Ibrahim Saeed was the founder editor of Sanmarga, a Kannada weekly published from Mangalore. Ibrahim Saeed was a senior journalist and had served Sanmarga for three decades as editor until he was given the office of state president of Jamat-e-Isalmi Hind, Karnataka and Goa division. He was also a chief of Da’wah wing of Jamat-e-Islami for its Karnataka unit. Saeed was born and educated in Mangalore.
Ibrahim Saeed launched Sanmarga weekly in 1979 after quitting his job in a nationalized bank.
After returning from his second Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, he handed over the responsibility of presidency of Jamat-e-Islami which he could serve for a term of 4 years from 2003 to 2006. For a decade he rendered his services as a member of national representative body of Jamat-e-Islami Hind in Delhi. Saeed was one of founders of Shanthi Prakashana and later he became chairman of this publishing house.
Ibrahim Saeed is known to the people of Karnataka state not merely as a journalist but also as a thinker, an intellectual and a scholar. He was a captivating orator and had traveled widely in Karnataka giving lectures on various topics such as communal harmony, character building and moral values, significance of democracy in India and so forth. Da’wah is another field he had taken up to his heart during his lifetime and had composed several Da’wah related books. Plenty of his Kannada and Urdu speeches have come out in form of audio cassettes as well. He did voice recording for the first ever Kannada translation of the Qur’an in electronic format. Saeed is a multi linguist with profound knowledge of Kannada, Urdu and English. He has studied Arabic and Malayalam languages privately. He used to hold his weekly Qur'an discourse sessions in Kannada and also in Beary bashe, a dialect used by the Indian Beary community live alongside coastal Karnataka.
Ibrahim Saeed had firmly believed that most of the mistrust between followers of Islam and other religions spring from the lack of knowledge about each other’s faith. He not only had been a student of comparative religions but strived to remove the mistrust and bring the people of various religions closer through his translations, writings and speeches.
Saeed was a prolific writer, has significantly contributed to Kannada literature by writing at least 22 books on various topics. Apart from that he has translated some 25 books from
Urdu and English into Kannada language. His most famous booklet on communal harmony has been a tool in promoting harmony amongst the people of different faiths living together, often distributed free of cost on various occasions. Another celebrated work Tappu kalpanegalu reprinted 9 times in a very short time span and made him famous in the neighboring states of Karnataka when this book was translated into English, Marathi and Tamil languages. He had also rendered services as chairman of Shanti Prakashana, a publishing company based in Mangalore city.
His work Mahakavi Iqbalara kavanagalu is a humble attempt to transform thoughts and philosophy of Allama Iqbal into Kannada language which he had started to pen down in his popular weekly, Sanmarga. Later Shanti Prakashana, of which he was chairman, could bring out in book form. This is the first major work in Kannada as regard to Sir Allama Iqbal’s poetry or philosophy is concerned.
Ibrahim Saeed also served in translation board of Divya Qur’an and Qur’an Vyakhyana. Former is a translation and latter is commentary (Tafsir) work of the Qur’an in Kannada. Qur’an Vyakhyana is an abridged version of Towards Understanding the Qur'an, the world renowned Qur’an exegesis of modern times. He has enormously contributed to bring out Kannada Translation of Qur'an in audio cassettes and later in CD form.
Pravadi Jeevana Sandesha is another major literary achievement of Ibrahim Saeed in simple intelligible Kannada language. It is comprehensive but short and authentic biography of Muhammad with proper citations and reference sources. Undoubtedly this work is a valuable little gift of Saeed to forty million Kannada speaking population of Karnataka.
Ibrahim Saeed was a columnist in Prajavani, the largest published Kannada daily of Karnataka. In Prajavani he wrote under nom de plume Sanmargi...
Ibrahim Saeed breathed his last at the age of 62, on Sunday, May 27, 2007 Ibrahim Saeed has 4 sons and 4 daughters. He was intellectually productive till the end of his life.
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