Tributes paid as ‘pioneering’ south Asian elder who came to Sheffield in 1956 dies aged 84

Haji Tufail Hussain, from Darnall, passed away earlier this week, leaving behind a large extended family including seven children.

He arrived in Sheffield in 1956 from the Kashmir region of Pakistan, working in the steel industry in Attercliffe before starting a cafe serving food from south Asia in the early 1960s.

He later went on to open one of the first grocery and meat shops catering for the city’s growing migrant community.

Married to Kharait, all their seven children all went to local schools around the Attercliffe area and have continued to follow their father’s lead in community work.

One of Mr Hussain’s sons Mushtaq has been a regular voice on BBC Radio Sheffield, working on their community broadcasts, while his other son Mukhtar Tufail is the centre manager at the Pakistan Muslim Centre in Attercliffe.

Muhammed Ali, chair of the Pakistan Muslim Centre, said: “Mr Hussain believed in empowering women to fulfill their potential, he led by example when in the early sixties he took the bold step to encourage his wife Kharait to learn to drive and support the family-run business, which at the time turned many heads.”

Former member of the European Parliament for the Yorkshire and The Humber and current Sheffield City Councillor, Shaffaq Mohammed, added: “Haji Tufail Hussain was a long-standing friend of my late father Mohammed Saddique and will be very dearly missed by the local Asian community in Sheffield whom he has served for decades. My thoughts and prayers are with his family at this very difficult time.”

Councillor Mohammed said that but for the current coronavirus restrictions, hundreds of mourners would have been expected to attend Mr Hussain funeral’s from all over the country to pay their respects.

However, funeral prayers for him were held for him at the Bodmin Street mosque in Attercliffe this week followed by burial at a service attended by close family in accordance with Covid guidelines.

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