Salahuddin and Sarwat Malik History Scholarship

Dr. Salahuddin Malik, a retired professor in the Department of History at SUNY Brockport, established a scholarship in his name and that of his late wife, Sarwat, to recognize an outstanding student in the department.

A member of the Brockport faculty for more than 50 years, Dr. Malik began his studies in Pakistan and continued them in Great Britain and at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He began his Brockport career in 1970, teaching world history and the history of the Middle East. He also has presented numerous papers at conferences, and he has authored more than a dozen articles published in scholarly journals as an expert on the religious history of the Middle East, Muslim nationalism, and British imperialism.

In 1987 and in 2010, he chaired the Brockport-hosted New York Conference on Asian Studies, the oldest and largest regional conference on Asian studies in the United States. In 2008, the Oxford University Press published 1857: War of Independence or Clash of Civilizations, which he wrote on the Indian rebellion against the British East India Company.

In the larger community, Dr. Malik was instrumental in establishing the Islamic Center of Rochester for which he served as its first president and fostered interfaith dialogues in western New York. He has served as a board member of the U.S.-based Council on Islamic Education, was one of three scholars invited to revise high school textbooks on Islam and the Middle East, and served as president of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. He retired from Brockport in 2020.

Sarwat Malik, MD, was a specialist in Internal Medicine, who practiced for 38 years as both a member of a multi-practice specialty group and as a solo practitioner. She received the Medical Medal of Honor for her services to the American Muslim community of Rochester. She was the founding president of the Medical Women’s Association of Rochester and the founding president of the Fatima Jinnah Medical College North American Alumni Association.

A member of the Advisory Board of the Hickey Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue at Nazareth College, she also received a 2010 designation as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century from Women’s eNews. In addition, she served as founding member and vice chair of the Global Partnership for Women and Girls, a fund of the Tides Foundation. She passed away in July 2013.

The Salahuddin and Sarwat Malik Scholarship recognizes an outstanding graduate student in the Department of History at Brockport. Candidates must be engaged in research and writing a research paper on a topic such as Islam, the Middle East, Palestine, evolution of Pakistan, historical perspective of the Kashmir dispute, the history of Muslim/Christian relations, or Women in the Islamic World. When practical, the recipient will present their work at Scholars Day or at the NYS annual conference during the year the scholarship is awarded. The history department scholarship committee selects the recipient for this award.