Muhammad Ali Siddiqui

Ali Siddiqui was a prominent Urdu language critic. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Institute of Business and Technology, Karachi. He also served as Dean, Faculty of Education & Social Sciences at Hamdard University, Karachi for six years. He taught at Karachi University for a number of years. He served as the Director of Quaid-i-Azam Academy for six years and was the President of Progressive Writers Association in 2013 at the time of his death.

Ali Siddiqui had penned more than 100 research articles. He has 16 books to his credit, two of them Tawazun and Croce ki Sarguzasht, were adjudged as the 'Best Books of the Years' in 1976 and 1979 respectively. He used to write for the business journal Business Recorder and he wrote a column for the Dawn newspaper under the pen name Ariel for over two decades.

Muhammad Ali Siddiqui (7 March 1938 – 9 Jan 2013) was a noted scholar of Urdu literature, educationist, literary critic and a newspaper columnist from Pakistan. He was also widely known by his pen name Ariel in Pakistan.

He was born on 7 March 1938 in Amroha, India, and was brought up in Karachi, Pakistan. He died on 9 January 2013 at Karachi, Pakistan. His family had migrated to Pakistan in 1948. He received his early education at Christian Mission School in Karachi. Then he went on to receive his master's degree in English literature from the University of Karachi in 1962. He was able to use English, French, Hindko, Hindi Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, Seraiki and Urdu languages. Muhammad Ali Siddiqui completed his D.Litt degree in Pakistan Studies in 2003 after doing his PhD in the same subject in 1992. He worked at the Pakistan Studies Center of the University of Karachi.