Born as Salma Begum in the small town of Dibai in Bulandshahr district, Uttar Pradesh, Dr Salma Mahfooz emerged as a pioneering scholar who redefined the relationship between language, religion, and education in modern India. Raised in a Muslim family, she grew up in an environment where it was commonly assumed that Muslims would naturally gravitate toward Urdu rather than Sanskrit; yet her fascination with Sanskrit began in school and quietly set her on a path that would challenge this social norm. Her parents, Ishtiaque Ahmed and Ehsan Fatima, recognised her unusual interest in the language and not only allowed but actively encouraged her to pursue it further, laying the foundation for a career that would later become a symbol of intellectual courage and interfaith openness.
After completing her high school education under the Uttar Pradesh board in 1961, she moved to Aligarh to enrol at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) for higher studies, choosing Sanskrit as her primary subject at a time when such a choice by a Muslim woman was virtually unheard of. At AMU, she completed her B.A. and M.A. in Sanskrit and earned an M.A. in Hindi literature, thereby developing a deep command of both classical and modern Indian literary traditions. Her academic promise was quickly recognised by her teachers, particularly the noted Sanskrit scholar Prof. Ram Suresh Tripathi, who encouraged her to remain in Sanskrit and predicted that she could become the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD in the subject. This prediction proved true in 1969, when she completed her PhD in Sanskrit at AMU, becoming widely recognised as the first Muslim woman in the world to earn a doctorate in Sanskrit.
Her doctoral dissertation, titled “Sanskrit Natko me Nayika Bhed” (“Types of Heroines in Sanskrit Dramas”), examined the different categories and roles of heroines in Sanskrit drama and literature. Through this work, she explored the many ways in which women were portrayed in classical texts, analysing their emotional, social, and ethical dimensions across multiple literary forms. The thesis not only demonstrated her mastery of the language and literary tradition but also reflected a strong interest in women’s representation in classical culture, an area that would resonate with later discussions on gender and literature.
After completing her doctorate, Dr Mahfooz began her professional career teaching Sanskrit at Rani Bhagyawati College in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. Her early years of teaching strengthened her conviction that Sanskrit, far from belonging to a single community, could be embraced by anyone with a genuine interest and commitment. She subsequently travelled to Iraq to conduct a comparative study, in which she examined similarities between Hinduism and Islam, employing linguistic and textual analysis to identify shared philosophical and spiritual themes. On her return to India, she was appointed a lecturer in the Sanskrit Department at Aligarh Muslim University, a position she held for more than four decades.
At AMU, Dr Mahfooz gradually rose through the ranks and eventually became Chairperson (Head) of the Sanskrit Department, while also serving as a Senior Research Fellow and Research Associate under the University Grants Commission. She taught a wide range of texts, including the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, other Hindu religious texts, and various works of classical Sanskrit literature. A practising Muslim, she regularly performed religious duties such as namaz, fasting, Hajj, and Umrah, while simultaneously studying and teaching Hindu scriptures, including the Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita, repeatedly insisting that this dual commitment never created any conflict in her life. Her oft-quoted principle, “Religion has its place, education has its place. The two should not be mixed,” encapsulates the philosophy that guided her career and public stance.
Her research extended beyond her doctoral work into areas that directly engaged questions of interfaith understanding. Under a UGC fellowship, she authored a significant study titled “A Critical Study of Sirr-e-Akbar vis-à-vis the Upanishads,” focusing on Mughal prince Dara Shikoh’s Persian translation of the Upanishads and his attempt to find a shared mystical language between Islam and Hinduism. She also supervised more than fifteen PhD scholars, guiding research on the Mahabharata and other classical texts, and organised major conferences, including a Sanskrit-themed year at AMU’s Women’s College in 2001 and a 2004 conference on women’s contributions to Sanskrit. Through this sustained work, she helped demonstrate that Sanskrit studies could be a site of dialogue rather than division between religious communities.
Over the course of her long academic career, Dr Mahfooz became a vocal public figure on questions of language, identity, and education. She frequently stressed that there is “no connection between language and religion,” arguing that a teacher is simply a teacher and that no community has a monopoly over any language. During the 2019 controversy over the appointment of a Muslim Sanskrit professor at Banaras Hindu University, she publicly criticised the protests, pointing to her own decades-long experience teaching Sanskrit without facing discrimination from students of other communities. Her life story has increasingly been cited to challenge the stereotype that Sanskrit is exclusively a “Hindu” or “Brahmin” language, and to support the idea that knowledge belongs to all.
In recognition of her work, Dr Mahfooz has received honours such as the “Aligarh Ratna” (2015) for her literary and academic contributions and the “Vidya Ratna” for her extensive research and promotion of Sanskrit literature and ancient Indian texts, including the Vedas, Upanishads and Gita. Today, she is remembered not only as the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD in Sanskrit but also as a trailblazer who quietly dismantled barriers of religion, gender, and language through scholarship, teaching, and personal example.