My father taught me the dignity of labor: We ‘get to’ live, work and love
ZAFAR NOMANI, IMMIGRANT SCHOLAR WHO ADVOCATED FOR DIGNITY OF LABOR, DIES AT 93
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Zafar Nomani, a professor of nutrition who immigrated to the United States from India and built a life defined by service and gratitude, died in early August. He was 93.
Nomani spent his final weeks in Room 8 at a local hospital, surrounded by family including grandchildren Safiyyah, Samir, Shibli and Kenzy. His death came during this Labor Day weekend, a timing his daughter said has prompted reflection on the values her father held most dear.
Born in Hyderabad, India, in 1933 under British colonial rule, Nomani survived the Bengal famine of 1943, during which the British diverted food from India to support military operations in World War II. As a child, he stood in lines receiving food aid from the United States, including coarse red sorghum that he later described as grain intended for animal feed.
"He never organized his days around complaints," his daughter said. "His philosophy was not 'I have to,' but 'I get to.'"
After arriving in America on a fellowship in 1962, Nomani took a position as a visiting teacher at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. One afternoon, he spotted his professor among students at a church car wash, scrubbing vehicles alongside them. That image remained with him for the rest of his life.
"I saw the dignity of labor," he would tell his family.
Nomani married Sajida in 1962 in an arranged marriage. On their wedding night, he shared with her a simple guiding principle: "Serve humanity."
The couple eventually settled in Piscataway, New Jersey, where Nomani pursued doctoral studies at Rutgers University. During that time, Sajida babysat other people's children to earn enough money for airfare so their children—Mustafa and the daughter—could join them in the United States. The family lived in modest graduate-student housing converted from military barracks.
In 1975, the family moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, where Nomani built his career as a professor of nutrition. He worked long hours but never begrudged them.
"He didn't complain," his daughter recalled. "His love language was service."
That service took many forms. When Sajida wanted to become the first woman in her family to start a business, Nomani stayed up through the night hand-drawing a window sign for her boutique, Ain's International, on High Street in downtown Morgantown. He then drove around town stapling promotional flyers to bulletin boards. The store became a gathering place for generations of college students who sat at her counter sharing stories and struggles.
When his daughter received an opportunity for a journalism internship in New York City in 1983, Nomani drove her from their Morgantown home to an interview at Harper's Magazine on Park Avenue. He found cheaper parking in New Jersey rather than Manhattan, a detail he remembered years later with quiet pride rather than complaint.
As a first-generation immigrant, Nomani understood that opportunity was meant to be created for others, not hoarded.
His daughter, who grew up to become an investigative journalist, said her father supported her ambitions even when they challenged cultural expectations. When she faced online death threats and character attacks, he created the online moniker "Zaf4Peace" to defend her on comment boards.
At their local mosque in Morgantown in 2003, an elder told women to use the back entrance. Nomani, serving on the mosque board, wept in the kitchen as he pleaded with other members to "make room for our daughters." When they refused, he surrendered his position.
"He was willing to apply that scientific openness to himself," his daughter said. "He grew with me, and in that shelter, I was able to grow."
Nomani approached life's challenges with what he called the scientific method. When a tree fell in their yard, he put his grandson's bicycle helmet on his own head as a makeshift safety device and studied the problem's angles, weight and physics. When asked about his strategy, he offered a phrase his daughter said she carries with her still: "Life is multivariate."
As a scientist, Nomani studied the Islamic practice of Ramadan fasting and became a pioneer in research that would later inform what is now understood as intermittent fasting.
During his final months, as family members gathered to care for him, they said they gained a new appreciation for the lifetime of service he had provided.
"Nearly five decades after that rainy track meet—when he stood at the finish line breathing warm air onto his daughter's frozen hands—I sat beside him in Room 8 holding those hands that had once enclosed mine," his daughter said. "His lesson of unconditional love had come full circle."
Nomani is survived by his wife Sajida, children Mustafa and his daughter, and four grandchildren.
A funeral prayer was held this weekend. In keeping with traditions he had worked to change, his daughter stood sentry outside the mosque rather than demanding entry through the front door.
"There was a time when I might have understood that moment as a confrontation with patriarchy," she said. "I understood it differently now. I was there with my father. For one day, the argument was no longer important. Honoring him was."
The family has asked that those wishing to remember him find their own ways to serve others.
"He taught me that the dignity of labor isn't simply the dignity of a paycheck or a profession," his daughter said. "It is the dignity of doing the work nobody applauds. It is the dignity of serving another human being without humiliation or reward. And this Labor Day, I finally understand the inheritance he left behind. There is work to do, and we get to do it."