Dr. Anis ur Rahmaan is an engineer, architect, and urban and regional planner. He either taught or studied in eleven educational institutions in Pakistan, the United States, England, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. In 1967, he was awarded the International Development Fellowship by the East-West Center, Hawaii University, America, and in --- the Best Professor Award by King Abdu lAziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Rahmaan prepared the first master plan for Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, in the 1960s. He sought the opinions of the residents of Lahore, and it was formally approved under the Municipal Administration Ordinance in 1960. Copies of the master plan for Greater Lahore are available in many of the libraries in US universities. 436 Dr. Rahmaan also held the post of director of town planning of the Punjab and NWFP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) for several years. Dr. Anis ur Rahmaan also served as a United Nations adviser on urban and regional planning in Saudi Arabia and as a UN consultant in the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan for about ten years. During his stay in Saudi Arabia, he had the privilege of monitoring the preparation of the master plan of Al Madinah al-Munawwara as well as the urban and regional plans of various cities and emirates. In 1999, his name was selected for the Who's Who in the World. These days, Dr. Rahmaan is working on various welfare projects to eradicate poverty and ignorance on a philanthropic basis. Dr. Anis ur Rahmaan's first book, Anjuman-e-Arzoo, and its English translation, Galaxy of Desire, has been well received in literary circles. Now, his second book, The Pursuit of Knowledge: A Lifetime Journey, is in your hand. It is a tale of a more-than-ninety-year journey through the memories of the past and the misty, winding, and uneven pathways of the future. In this journey, the author had to slow down occasionally because of the intervening hurdles, but he never gave up and continued his journey on a sustained basis through the thick and thin of life and, by the grace of Allah, always achieved the desired success.
