Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/133



The name of Nawab Abdul Latif Khan will always have an honoured place in Muhammadan annals in the nineteenth century. Although for over thirty five years he occupied no higher permanent official post than that of Deputy Magistrate, his great ability and keen advocacy of the causes he had at heart won for him an unique position, not only among the Indian community but also in European society. He was one of the first to recognise how great was the mistake that his co-religionists were making in holding themselves aloof from the wide-spread educational movement of the day, and in the great task of awakening them to a sense of their responsibilities he played a leading part. A large tolerance and a very earnest desire that Hindus and Muhammadans might draw more closely together won him well-nigh universal sympathy and esteem. Occupied as he was with the heavy routine work of a government official he yet found time to throw himself heart and soul into every movement that promised the advancement of the Muhammadan community or the amelioration of the lot of his poorer