Since 2001, I have received a steady stream of messages from people, especially students abroad, who found the Eqbal Ahmad site I produced very useful. Back in the day, when this site was built, there was no WordPress nor countless other open-source tools that would have made producing a site like this a breeze. The idea of developing a community platform that Eqbal groupies could contribute to, seemed so radical at the time! All those nights and stolen moments between other deadlines, the never-ending agony of trying to get code to compile, ‘forcing’ everyone at b.i.t.s. to read Eqbal … what heady times 
This morning, I woke up to the best Eqbal e-mail I have have received:
My name is Carol Stock. I had the immense honor to work for Eqbal as a secretary for two years in the late 1970s (or early ’80s?), during the time he was advising the PLO, writing guest columns for the New York Times, and serving on the editorial board of Race and Class among many tasks.
During these current times of crisis in Pakistan, I find myself asking, “What would Eqbal be doing and saying now?” And I remember the countless hours sitting before him in his New York appartment writing down his thoughts as he so precisely verbalized them. What I would give for just a few more minutes of hearing his thoughts.
I do not think he would be surprised at the political developments now occurring — he foreshadowed them when he spoke of the “poisonous seeds” being planted by U.S. militarism in the region. And I know he would not be paralyzed by the seemingly undefeatable destructive forces now threatening to overwhelm all enlightened, rational and humanistic thought in Southeast Asia. He would be writing, speaking, and organizing, whatever the odds.
So I read, and reread the writings he has left us, and I am indeed grateful for the website from which we who love him still can obtain some measure of comfort and inspiration. No, he will never be forgotten.
Trivia: I received immense flak from someone ‘important/stuffy’ who thought the inclusion of a Pink Floyd quote to honor a man like Eqbal Ahmad was terribly inappropriate. BAH!
