On Thursday, January 11, 2018, Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA) invited senior lawyers, judges, intellectuals and diplomats to the inaugurate the Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman Collection at the BILIA library, one of the largest open access law libraries in the country.
In order to commemorate Justice Rahman’s immense contributions to law, justice and other interdisciplinary scholarly endeavors, BILIA decided to dedicate a section of the BILIA library in his honour as ‘Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman Collection’. Justice Rahman, who was President of BILIA for twenty one years (from 1993 to 2014) had donated over one thousand books to the BILIA Library. Following his death in January 2014, Mr. Rahman’s family members donated approximately four hundred additional books to the BILIA Library from Justice Rahman’s personal collection. In order to complete the Collection, BILIA decided to collect ninety one books authored by Justice Rahman whose writings cut across a wide array of topics, ranging from law, philosophy and anthropology to language, literature (with special emphasis on Rabindranath Tagore) and translations of the holy Q’uran. As such the Collection consists of the books donated by Justice Rahman and his family members as well as the books authored by him.
The event was attended by a number of civil society intellectuals such as Mr. Justice Md. Nizamul Huq (Former Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh), Mr. Syeduzzaman (Former Finance Minister of Bangladesh), Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury (Founder of Gonoshasthaya Kendra), Mrs. Shireen Huq (Founding Member, Naripokkho), Ms. Khushi Kabir (Co-Ordinator, Nijera Kori) and Advocate Sultana Kamal (Former Executive Director, Ain o Salish Kendra). Dr. Shahdeen Malik, Honorary Director of BILIA and Dr. Rumana Islam, Assistant Director of BILIA and Associate Professor at University of Dhaka, were also present. Members of Justice Rahman’s family, including his daughter Ms. Rubaba Rahman, were also in attendance.
The event was commenced by screening a brief documentary about Justice Rahman’s life which included his interviews and highlighted key information about his life and achievements. This was followed by the formal unveiling of the Justice Rahman Collection at the BILIA library by Dr. Malik, Justice Huq, Dr. Chowdhury and Ms. Rahman. The event was concluded by anecdotes shared by Dr. Malik, Mr. Syeduzzaman and Ms. Rahman respectively about Justice Rahman’s life. Most notably Justice Rahman played a key role in Language Movement and later went on to become the Chief Justice of Bangladesh in 1995 and Chief Adviser of the 1996 Caretaker Government which oversaw the seventh parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.
