Qazi Motahar Hossain (30 July 1897 – 9 October 1981) was a Bangladeshi author, scientist, statistician, chess player, and journalist. Hossain was a pioneer educationalist of Bangladesh. He did original research in statistics and pioneered its education in Bangladesh both as a faculty and administrator. As one of the early faculties of University of Dhaka, he was vigorously active in the cultural circles that grew around it. As a Dhaka-centric literary figure in late British India, a period marked by communality and religious sentiment, Hossain and his literary group Shikha distinguished themselves as proponents of communal harmony and rationalism. He was among the sceptical intellectuals who warned the consequences of the short-lived state of Pakistan. On several occasion, he vocally criti