Abul Hassan Isphani

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Mirza Abul Hassan Ispahani (Urdu: مرزا ابو الحسن اصفہانی‎) (1902–1981) was a Pakistani legislator and diplomat. He belonged to a well-to-do Ispahani family and was educated at St John's College, Cambridge.^[1] He completed his Bar-at-Law in 1924 of the All India Muslim League held in Madras in April 1941. At the 29th session of Muslim League held in Allahabad in 1942, he moved the resolution which was passed, giving full powers to Muhammad Ali Jinnah "to take every step or action as he may consider necessary in furtherance of relating to the objects of the Muslim League as he deems proper".

He became a member of the Indian Constituent Assembly in 1946 and represented the Muslim League at the New York Herald Tribune Forum the same year.

After independence, he became Member Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1947. Mr. Isphani toured the United States as personal representative of Jinnah and was ambassador to the United States from September 1947 to February 1952. He was Deputy Leader of Pakistan Delegation to UNO on Trade And Development in 1947. He was Vice Chairman Pakistan Delegation to U.N. Security Council on Kashmir issue and was High Commissioner to the UK from 1952 to 1954. He was Federal Minister for Industries and Commerce from 1954 to 1955. He was an Ambassador to Afghanistan in 1973–74.

Grave of Abul Hassan Isphani

Ispahani died in Karachi in 1981. He authored a number of books which include:

• The case of Muslim India (1946)
• 27 days in China (1960)
• Leningrad to Samarkand (1962)
• Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah, as I Knew Him (1967)

See also: Zaidi, Z. H., ed. M. A. Jinnah-Ispahani Correspondence, 1936–1948. Karachi: Forward publishing Trust, 1976.

During the 1990s Mirza Zia Ispahani, the youngest son of Mirza Abul Hassan Ispahani, served as Pakistan Ambassador in Switzerland and Italy and is currently Ambassador-at-large with Minister of State status and visited Bangladesh on the instructions of PPP co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari. His granddaughter, Farahnaz Ispahani, served as a member of Pakistan's parliament and is the wife of Pakistan's ex-ambassador to US, Mr Hussain Haqqani and lived for some time in the same house in Washington as did her grandfather.

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