New Delhi: Zakir Husain was born on this day in 1897 in the Hyderabad state of undivided India. He was a Pashtun Muslim from Punjab, who belonged to the Khesgi and Afridi tribes. He first moved to Malihabad in the United Provinces before moving to the Deccan in the 19th century. When Zakir Husain was a young boy, his family moved from Hyderabad to Qaimganj. This is where he grew up, and so he remained more closely associated with Kayamganj in Farrukhabad district.

Zakir Husain was the second of seven children. Many, in fact, most of his family members chose to embrace Pakistan over the partition of India. His brother Mahmud Husain had joined the Pakistan movement many years before partition and a prominent light of Jinnah's Muslim League was to such an extent that he was made a member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Beginning in 1951, he served as Pakistan's Minister of Education and Minister of Kashmir Affairs in a significant period. Zakir Husain's nephew, Anwar Husain, served as director of the Pakistan Television Corporation. Rahimuddin Khan, a cousin, served as chairman of the Pakistan Army, the Joint Staff Committee and the governor of Balochistan and Sindh. Zakir Husain's family members, who chose to live in India, under the patronage of the Congress party, did as well for themselves as both before and after Zakir Husain did to handle the topmost office of the land.

His younger brother Yusuf Husain became the pro-vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, while his nephew, Masood Zakir Husain, was the vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia. Zakir Husain's own son-in-law Khursheed Alam Khan served as the Governor of Karnataka for many years and his grandson, Salman Khurshid, who was a Politician of the Congress Party, was the External Affairs Minister of India under Manmohan Singh. Zakir Husain's father Fida Husain Khan, died at the age of ten, his mother died at the age of fourteen. Zakir Husain's early primary education was completed in Hyderabad, he completed high school at Islamia High School, Etawah and then graduated in Economics from Christian Degree College, Lucknow University. After graduation, he moved to Muhammad's Anglo-Oriental College, then joined Allahabad University, where he was a prominent student leader. He received his doctorate in economics from the University of Berlin in 1926. In 1915, at the age of 18, he married Shah Jahan Begum and had two daughters, Syeda Khan and Safia Rehman.

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