But, due to his association with academia, he resigned from his government appointments and joined the academic faculty at the Columbia University as a professor of South Asian history.

In 1947, during the Partition riots, when the Muslim students of the St Stephen's College had to be evacuated to the Purana Qila, Dr Qureshi's library was completely burnt down by the mobs.

[5][8] In late 1950s, Qureshi was brought back to Pakistan by Ayub Khan's martial regime to aid in the crafting of state's new education policy.

[11][9] Thus emerged doyens like Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya, Jadunath Sarkar et al who, in the opinion of Peter Hardy, set the theme of discourse.

[9] The precise details of this narrative often underwent strategic shifts, as dictated by political needs of the state[a] — however Qasmi cautions against considering Qureshi as a pen-for-hire; he genuinely believed in much of what he wrote and argued.

[9] The book gave an uncritical description of Muslim rulers[b]—even glorifying figures as contentious as Mahmud[c] and Aurangzeb[d]—and went lengths to emphasize upon the perennial nature of the two-nation thesis.

[9][f] As to the colonial period, peasant and labor movements were sanitized in what was a largely sympathetic presentation of the British Government; the focus remained exclusively upon the development of Muslim identity.

[9] In Qasmi's reading of the work, the history of Muslim India was reinterpreted to guide (and justify) the policies of the infant state: "fair (yet not equal) treatment of minorities, patronage of arts and culture, and the rule of law".

[9][13][14] In 1952, Fazlur Rahman— then, Minister of Education[h]—had convened another commission to draft an "authentic history" of "Muslim Freedom Movement" in "Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent" with Qureshi as a member.

[9] Writing the preface for the first volume (1957), Qureshi wrote how Akbar's syncretic policies had led to the downfall of Mughal Empire by weakening religious solidarity.

[9][i] Feroz Ahmed, writes: "One of the favourite right-wing 'scholars' of the ruling alliance, I. H. Qureshi, went to the extent of stating that Bengalis were a different (implying inferior) race than the West Pakistanis.