The Man, The Family Elder

The Partition of India in 1947, which Aslam Hayat witnessed as a teenager in Lahore, was among the most formative experiences of his life. The upheaval it brought — the displacement, the loss, the transformation of the world he had grown up in — became a recurring theme in his writing and a lens through which he understood the history of the subcontinent.

Over more than twenty-five years of newspaper columns, he returned again and again to the events and consequences of Partition — exploring its causes, its human cost, and its long shadow over the lives of South Asians in the decades that followed. He wrote as a witness and as a historian, bringing personal memory together with rigorous historical attention.

Aslam Hayat had a uniquely close and profound relationship with his grandson Zeeshan Hayat. To Zeeshan, he was far more than a grandfather.

He was a father figure, mentor, teacher, spiritual guide, protector, and closest lifelong companion. When Zeeshan lost his mother at a young age, it was Aslam Hayat who stepped forward — helping to raise him, guiding him, and giving him the love and stability a child needs.

He taught Zeeshan to read the Quran in Arabic. He instilled in him the values of education, faith, patience, humility, and service. He supported Zeeshan throughout his life and remained his most trusted confidant until the very end.

Aslam Hayat was a devoted Muslim who lived his faith deeply and consistently. Beyond daily practice, he was a serious student of Islamic spirituality — in particular the Sufi tradition and the writings of Ibn Arabi, the renowned Andalusian philosopher and mystic, whose works he studied extensively.

His faith was inseparable from his intellectual life. It informed his writing, his reading of history, and his understanding of the human condition. He studied with the same seriousness he brought to professional matters, and sought always to pass that depth of faith on to those closest to him.

He taught those around him that faith is expressed above all in how one treats others — in honesty, in patience, in generosity of spirit, and in service to family and community.

Writing was where Aslam Hayat put his most carefully worked-out thoughts. Urdu gave him the precision and register he needed — a literary language with centuries of intellectual tradition behind it. For more than twenty-five years, week after week, he contributed a column to The Miracle, Vancouver's Pakistani community newspaper, and in doing so produced a body of work that exceeds 650 articles.

Those articles weren't opinion pieces. They were researched, argued, historically grounded. Partition. Islamic theology. The decline of Urdu in diaspora communities. The relationship between science and faith. He treated a community newspaper column with the seriousness of a scholar — because that is what he was.

In his final years he used Facebook with the same intent: to share ideas, pass on knowledge, stay connected with family spread across continents, and keep writing until he could no longer.

Aslam Hayat arrived in Canada in 1989 and made his home in Vancouver, British Columbia. He remained a beloved presence in his family and in the Pakistani-Canadian community until his passing on 30 May 2026, aged 93.