Dr Muhammad Abdul Jalil

Dr Muhammad Abdul Jalil

Muhammad Abdul Jalil, always known as Jalil, was born in Khandwa in what was then called the Central Provinces of India, the youngest of 10 children. The partition of India affected his family in significant ways, resulting in relocation to Pakistan. He had begun his education at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, not far from Agra but then transferred to Dow Medical College in Karachi where he received his MBBS.

Great things were expected of him, so he was sent off to England in 1956 to earn the first British degree in the family. This was a DTM & H in 1959 followed by DMRD in 1962. He always spoke fondly of all the professors at whose elbows he learned radiology, most especially Professor Ronald Grainger.

In the meantime he had met and married a Yorkshire lass, Ann Owens and enjoyed a marriage that lasted nearly 55 years.

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4th February 1928 to 6th December 2015

His senior appointments in England began at Derby Royal Infirmary and in 1963, Jalil and his wife left for Kuwait where he opened a private X-Ray Centre in the middle of the city. For 28 years, he served the local and international community including the American Mission Hospital as consultant radiologist. He was also Overseas Radiologist for the Middlesex Hospital from 1972-73. On the Silver Jubilee of the Kuwait Medical Association, as a Founding Member, he was honoured by the Emir of Kuwait for services to medicine. One of the highlights of his career and life was being admitted as a Fellow to the RCR in November 1989. He was also Honorary Secretary of the Radiological Society of Kuwait and Chairman of the BMA’s Northallerton Branch in 1996.

Jalil retired to a village on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors where he pursued his literary interests. Amongst his published books are The Great European Bazaar and A Memorable Journey, both travel narratives. He was also very interested in the poetry of Iqbal and Ghalib. Philanthropy and charity were lifelong passions and one of his legacies is the Jalil Travelling Professorship (now part of the Cochrane Shanks Jalil ) which enables a UK clinical oncologist or clinical radiologist to visit a developing country to teach and lecture. He was committed to easing the plight of widows, orphans and the blind in India and Pakistan. He never stopped learning, right until the very end of his life, curious about all manner of subjects and still reading medical journals avidly. Jalil leaves his wife Ann, two daughters and two grandchildren, all of whom he was utterly devoted to.