About The Author

Abdur Rab graduated with Honors and received a Master's degree from Dhaka University and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He spent decades in economic research and consulting, analyzing various public policy issues, while serving the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan, and the Bangladesh and former undivided Pakistan governments, and various international organizations. He served the Pakistan Tariff Commission as a Member, and the Bangladesh Planning Commission as a Section Chief and a Senior Consultant. He worked as an Industrial Development Officer with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vienna.

He served as Financial and Monetary Adviser for the government of Uganda under a World Bank assignment, and as Senior Industrial Economist for the Qatar government under a UNIDO assignment. Under a UNDP assignment, he contributed to part of a business plan for a trade and development bank of the Economic Co-operation Organization (whose founding members are Iran, Turkey and Pakistan). He also offerred his consulting services to various development projects in Bangladesh supported by donor agencies such as the World Bank, USAID, and the Asian Development Bank. He also did consulting as an agricultural trade specialist for the US-based International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC).

Abdur Rab grew up in a traditional Bengali Muslim family. Deeply religious since childhood, he experienced a paradigm change in his religious approach after he came in contact with a virtually unknown but versatile Bengali spiritual guide Shah Aksaruddin Ahmad, whose Quranic teachings were resisted by influential Islamic leaders of the traditional, Hadith-following sects. Under his guidance, Abdur received some preliminary lessons in spiritual exercises. Inspired by him, Abdur closely studied the Quran, the Hadith, and other relevant Islamic literature of modern scholars. He presently lives with his family in the United States.