Prominent scholar, writer, essayist and journalist Maulana Sharif Muhammad said martyred President Ziaur Rahman placed great importance on religious figures and Islamic scholars. In a Facebook post on Sunday, cited in a report published on August 10, 2026, he described accounts he had received about Ziaur Rahman’s meetings with scholars in different parts of the country.

Sharif Muhammad said he encountered the description more than once while working on commemorative books about the lives of several legendary scholars and intellectuals. According to his account, when Ziaur Rahman travelled outside Dhaka to districts, thanas or villages, he would meet leading religious personalities and scholars there with importance and ask for their prayers.

He added that Ziaur Rahman would sometimes, as a courtesy, ask scholars to offer him advice or tell him something. Sharif Muhammad described this as a quality worthy of emulation. He also said it would be an occasion for welfare if Prime Minister Tarique Rahman could maintain this continuity of meetings.