The moving spirit behind Karwan-e-Ilm Foundation and its Former General Secretary, was Dr. Aijaz Hassan Qureshi (late). He was born to a bourgeois yet devout Muslim family in the now Indian district of Karnal in 1928.

The religious and scholastic ambience of his abode inculcated in him enormous love for knowledge and Islamic virtues. He completed his intermediate from Aligarh University and fervently participated in the 1946 elections as a young All India Muslim League enthusiast.

He migrated along with his family to Pakistan in October, 1947. Dr. Qureshi not only completed his education but kept on working at different positions during his educational journey. He completed his Masters in Islamic History from University of the Punjab. He always wanted to be an educationist as he had utmost love and passion for the education. It was this desire in which he taught the students from primary to college level. Afterwards, he got scholarship for PhD from Germany. In 1960, he returned to Pakistan after completing his doctorate degree (PhD) in History from Germany and was appointed as Lecturer in University of the Punjab in March, 1960.

The same year he launched monthly Urdu Digest on the pattern of monthly Readers Digest. After relinquishing his teaching job in 1966, he adopted journalism as full-fledged career. After Urdu Digest, he brought out weekly Zindagi and Daily Jasarat.

Dr. Qureshi has left huge positive impact on journalism, business and social service during his career spanning over 60 years. He has also dealt in promoting horticulture and introduced Pakistani varieties of vegetables and fruits, especially orange, in foreign markets. While touring Korea in 1979, he counseled his younger brother Altaf Hassan Qureshi to form Pakistan Institute of National Affairs (PINA) on the conception of a think tank.

Dr. Aijaz Hassan Qureshi has informally been extending generous financial aid to talented students under the auspices of Urdu Digest since long. In 2002, he decided to materialize his idea of helping out destitute yet talented students in fastidious manner and it was on his initiative that notables from differing walks of life came forward to form the Karwan-e-Ilm Foundation with an exclusive aim to facilitate deserving and brilliant but needy students in pursuing their higher studies.