C. M. Naim

Choudhri Mohammed Naim (3 June 1936 – 9 July 2025) was an Indian-born American scholar of Urdu language and literature. He was professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.

Naim was the founding editor of both Annual of Urdu Studies and Mahfil (now Journal of South Asian Literature), as well as the author of the definitive textbook for Urdu pedagogy in English.

Naim was born on 3 June 1936 in Barabanki, British India, the son of Choudhri Mohammed Masud and Naima Masud. He was educated at Lucknow University (BA Honours, 1954 and MA in Urdu, 1955), Deccan College, Pune, and the University of California, Berkeley (MA in Linguistics, 1961). He served as a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley from 1960 to 1961.

In 1961, he joined the faculty of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago as a research fellow, he served for a year before being promoted to a lecturer (1962), instructor (1963), assistant professor (1968) and associate professor (1971). He chaired the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations from 1985 to 1991. He retired in 2001. He also served as a visiting associate professor Aligarh Muslim University from 1971 to 1972 and a visiting professor at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, in 2003. He was a national fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, in 2009

Naim married Candace R. Caveny and they had 2 children. He died on 9 July 2025, at the age of 89.