Mwalimu Ali Mazrui was hailed as one of Africa’s greatest scholars at an event on Tuesday at United Nations headquarters.

Kenya’s UN mission organised the remembrance on the day that would have marked Prof Mazrui’s 82nd birthday. He died last October at his home near a branch of the State University of New York where he had been director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies.

Perhaps best known for creating the BBC television series Africans: A Triple Heritage, Prof Mazrui was described as “a pan-Africanist par excellence” in remarks by Moufida Goucha, director of Unesco’s New York office.

Ms Goucha listed the Kenyan luminary’s various affiliations with the UN, including his work as the editor of one of the volumes of Unesco’s General History of Africa.

Among his scores of books and essays, Prof Mazrui wrote the Africa chapter of “The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 20th Century,” noted the book’s editor, Dinesh Sharma, in his remarks at Tuesday’s commemoration.

Neither a politician

Prof Sharma, a psychologist at the Institute of Global Cultural Studies, was one of about a dozen academic colleagues of Prof Mazrui’s who attended or spoke at the hour-long UN commemoration.

Macharia Kamau, Kenya’s UN ambassador, declared in his remarks that Prof Mazrui made an “amazingly beautiful” contribution to Africa through scholarship that refuted stereotypes of “the dark continent.”

READ: Prof Ali Mazrui: Controversial and courageous scholar, philosopher

Prof Mazrui had sought successfully “to construct new ideas against the resistance of tradition and conservatism,” Mr Kamau said.

Pauline Mazrui, the scholar’s widow, noted that he had initially wanted to become an attorney but was persuaded to take up the study of history instead.

“Politicians are lawyers,” Ms Mazrui said, implying that her late husband had not wished to become a member of either of those professions.