1963-1970, BS (1967) /MS (1969), Mining Engg, METU

1962-1963 Studied at Karachi University

Last Job: Technical Manager, Sami Rock Co., Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Born 1 January, 1943 in India. Married 11 January 1975

Wife: Farasat Abrar, 3 daughters – Sara, Asma, Aisha

Died 16 July 2014 at Karachi due to cardiac arrest.

Abrar Mustafa, a dear friend passed away today. INNA LILLAH WA INNA ILAYHi RAJEOON

He has been a dear friend and brother to me. I was with him since 28 Sep 1963; The day we got into PanAm flight from Karachi to Beirut, he was on the aisle seat, I was in the middle and Owais on the window seat. He asked for NaCl. (Riaz: you reminded me of Sodium Chloride). We were together 10 years in Iran and 12 years in Saudi Arabia. Lots of happy memories.

I am saddened.

Please pray for his Maghfira. May ALLAH SWT give him highest place in Jannah and give patience to his family. Ameen

Note: I will compile and forward all the messages of condolence to his daughter Aisha

I just wanted to relate to you another story of the same Pan American flight to Beirut which we had boarded on way to Ankara in 1963. While sitting in the plane, Abrar kept a copy of the Qur'an in his lap and would not let it go. The air hostess who was perhaps originally from Japan, came and bent down to take it and said, "Let me keep it in the overhead compartment".

Abrar held the copy of Qur'an fast and said, “no it is sacred”. The way he said sacred seemed more like 'secret'. The hostess became a little serious and asked what secret are you hiding? He then repeated 'sacred' and someone else also from the other seat, listening to the conversation, shouted "Sacred not secret". When she realized what he was trying to say, she held her two palms together and bowed down as if in prayer and said “This type of sacred?” He said “yes”. She left it there and walked away.

Imagine what would have happened if it was post 911 period and someone would say I am holding a secret and wouldn't let it go.

We can compile a small book if we start writing the funny things he used to do. We lost a very good friend.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajeoon.

I pray for Syed Abrar Mustafa’s maghfirat and high darajat in Jannat ul Firdous. I am so sad to hear that Abrar has passed away.

After 1970, I did not see much of Abrar. I saw him once briefly at his marriage in Karachi, and once when he came to visit me in Houston Texas. I never visited Saudi Arabia ever, so never had chance to meet him. Many other METUites visited him in KSA. Even when they did not know Abrar, he took them around and took care of them in every way.

Abrar came to METU Ankara in 1963-64 session with a large group from Pakistan. In the same year the others who came were: Abid Latif marhum (Los Angeles), Arshed Saeed marhum (Karachi), B. A. Kauser marhum (Karachi), Syed Mohammed Hasan marhum (UK, passed away in Turkiye), Ehsan Ullah Sharif (Karachi), Humayon Zafar (Houston, Texas), Iqbal Zafar, Mohammed Omar Jamil (Los Angeles), Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Islamabad), Najmul Hasan, Owais Bayunus (USA), Qurat Yasmeen, Sharaf Naved Rehman, Shuaib Yazdani (Lahore), S. Abdul Rechman, Waseem Siddiqi (Sweden), Wahaj Uddin Habib (Australia), Aftab Ahmed, Fareed G Rabbani  (Ontario, Canada), Mahmood Ali Khan marhum (Canada), Riazuddin Ahmed (Canada) and many others.

Abrar came from Karachi University and finished his BS in Mining Engineering at METU in 1967. He finished his MS in 1969 with thesis of “Genesis of Chrome Ore of Guleman mine in Türkiye”. Abrar, Omer Jamil, Khalid Zaki, Ehsanullah Shariff and I were in same department (kind of). Teachers liked him, especially department head, Prof Hayri Erten. He was also very well-liked by the department secretary; Tuzun Denli Abla. We called her Abla, which is elder sister in Turkish. Every time I visited her (last visit in 2007, she was quite old by then, but her memory was great, and she came driving by herself to see me), she would inquire about Abrar using his full name, “How is Syed Abrar Mustafa?”

Abrar, Asad Ullah Sophie and Zafar Ullah and I lived together in various rented apartments in Ankara for three or four years. We were together every day for these years, and we did many things together such as going out for lunch or dinner, going to movies, sightseeing, travelling to other cities for sightseeing and much more.

We fought many battles together: battle with embassy (more than once), battle for one year with a non-rent-paying Paki living with us, battle with Differential Equations 101, battle with self-declared Metupaki “Intellectual Group”, and mild discomfort with “Pajama Party”. We published DKJ or “Dawn Ki Jhant” for the pleasure or displeasure of the nearly 100 Metupakis who lived in Ankara at that time. We ran for elections of the student union. In 1966 Abrar was elected president of PSG against “Intellectual Group”. Later, I ran against a strong opponent and was elected. In summary, we went through a lot together, and had tremendous fun along the way. There were few dull moments during those years and every day was full of life, full of adventures, full of defeat or conquest, full of doing something or other. At times we would indulge in utterly stupid things, but Abrar always went along, never left any of us alone. We never had much disagreement, and Abrar always was there for everybody. We really had great time all those years.

Here is an example of stroke of Abrar’s genius. During those days university students used to get big discount on movies. Admission ticket was 1 TL at that time. Almost every weekend all four of us would go to movies. But there was one problem. If I recall correctly, the taxi fare used to be around 5 TL for the Turks. Even though we spoke fluent Turkish, the taxi drivers invariably believed that they were entitled to charge a lot more from foreigners. The taxis were not metered. Even when we offered to pay them 2 TL extra, they always wanted a lot more. I remember once when a taxi driver threw back the 7 TL in our face and drove off without taking money. Over months, we tried every way to overcome this problem. We tried using tactics of the Turks by not asking beforehand what the fare would be and at the end of journey give them a little more than normal fare. Or we would first ask how much they would charge for our destination, and other variations.  Regardless, they always wanted a lot more. For long time we were at the mercy of taxi drivers.

Finally Abrar came with his brilliant technique which always worked. We would walk to the taxi and Abrar would ask in very fast pace: “Gumus’e gedicegiz. TL 6 alacaksinmi, yoksa 7” (We are going to Gumus, will you take 6 TL or 7. And always the drivers would respond quickly saying 7 TL (the bigger of two numbers). After that we never had problem and it always worked.

Abrar always went with the flow and never gave trouble to anybody. The biggest pain in the neck he gave us was during the time Sophie, Kaka, Abrar and I lived together. Somehow he bought a cheap complete set of Shakespeare's work and started quoting those words to make a point. That was painful.

I remember the time we went to Germany and bought a Mercedes car together and brought it back to Ankara. Those were the days.

There are many more memories together, I could write many, many pages.

As Abrar would have been welcome to stay with me if he came visiting, I would like to convey to Abrar’s extended family, if they are in in the area, please let me know, it will be my pleasure to help them any way I can.

I just want to add, that Javed Iqbal Baqai and I were guests of DKJ for some time till we got a place in Hukuk Facultesi Dormitories.   Abrar was very kind to us and would often teach us Turkish customs and how to behave in public. We Pakistanis used to walk around with our hands around the neck of each other. He taught us how to greet a lady.  One fine afternoon we were coming back from the university on the way to our apartment and passed by a Turk Hava Yollari office.  Abrar suddenly stopped and told me to follow him and entered the THY office.  There was only one lady receptionist there.  Abrar noted that there was no one else and the Mudur's office was empty. With a disappointed voice, he said to her, “I want to charter an entire plane. Where is the Mudur. I would like to talk to  him”. The receptionist was in a state of shock. She could not say much and after stuttering ask us to sit down and offered us some tea.  She than apologized for the Mudur's absence and ask for information as when should we contact you and that she will make sure that the Mudur will be there in the morning waiting for us. etc.  Abrar seemed to be very serious and I was totally confused as what is going on.  This was one of Abrar's typical surprises out of an arsenal of tricks that he would pull out on you!

I met Abrar later in 2005 when I went for Hajj, he came to see me a couple of times and then sent us his car with a driver to show us all the historic sites around Mecca.  I met him once again during the 50^th anniversary of ODTU, but for a very short period.