Hamza Alavi was an academic sociologist

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 and activist with adherence to Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

. He was born in Bohra

Bohra

Bohra, Borah or Bohora, from the Gujerati word meaning 'trader', may refer to:*A Mustaali trading community:**Alavi Bohra, a branch of the Mustaali community**Dawoodi Bohra, a branch of the Mustaali community...

 community in Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

, the then British India which now constitutes Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 and eventually migrated to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The focus of his academic work was nationality, gender, fundamentalism and the peasantry. His most noted work was perhaps his 1965 essay Peasant And Revolution in the Socialist Register

Socialist Register

Socialist Register is an annual journal. It was founded in 1964 by Ralph Miliband and John Saville. They had criticisms of the New Left Review after Perry Anderson assumed leadership of the NLR. Miliband and Saville sought to bring about a journal in the orientation of The New Reasoner....

which stressed the militant role of the middle peasantry. These middle peasants were then viewed as the class in the rural areas which were most naturally the allies of the urban working class. In the 1960s he was one of the co-founders of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination

Campaign Against Racial Discrimination

The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasteduntil 1967, which lobbied for race relations legislation...

.

Selected publications

• Hamza Alavi, 1965 Peasant and Revolution, Socialist Register, pp. 241–7

• Alavi, Hamza & Shanin, Teodor
  Teodor Shanin
  Theodor Shanin was for many years a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. He is noted for his research on the informal economy, the Russian Revolution, African development, and perhaps most notably peasant studies.-Selected publications:...
  
  (2003) Introduction to the Sociology of "Developing Societies", Monthly Review Press

• Capitalism and Colonial Production: Essays on the Rise of Capitalism in Asia by Hamza Alavi, P. L. Burns, G. R. Knight, Croom Helm

• South Asia by Hamza Alavi, John Harriss, New York Univ Pr

• (1988) State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan by Fred Halliday, Hamza Alavi, Monthly Review Press