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PROFESSOR EBRAHIM MAMDANI, IN MEMORIAM

With the disappearance of Professor Ebrahim (Abe) Mamdani, the world's fuzzy community did lose one of its most distinguished members, the one to whom all of us are mainly indebted for introducing the first ideas on fuzzy control. Eusflat lost one of its 'European Pioneers', as Professor Mamdani was awarded with this distinction in 1999. The Imperial College lost a Professor whose contributions to research and to the prestige of his department are widely appreciated. The European Centre for Soft Computing lost one of its supporters in the Scientific Committee who was always deeply involved in the Centre's development.
Professor Mamdani's wife, Ginny, deserves our deepest sympathy for her loss.

I lost a good and generous friend  with whom I delighted discussing, and whose intellectual power and honesty, fairness, sense of humor and gentle ability to incite debating, I deeply admired.As I look at thought, I look at death in the continuity of life, and I am sure that Abe's examples of living and thinking will be continued. Abe Mamdani lived a deep life from the personal, familiar, and professional sides, and I will always remember his joy for life, his passion for Technology, Science, Philosophy, and his interesting ideas on the relevance of establishing links between reasoning and digital computers. be Mamdani did a research that is worlwide recognized. He loved and was loved, discussed and was discussed, but among all he always tried to help people.

Abe was passionate by the old history of Arabs and Jews in Spain, and the only thing I regret is that the early end of his life did not allow him to visit the Cordoba's Mosque and the Granada's  Alhambra as our colleages in the University of Granada agreed with him, and that was delayed by his operation. At least, and thanks to Luis Magdalena, he and his wife could actually visit Toledo.

Professor Mamdani is in a central place in the history of fuzzy logic.

Enric Trillas
Emeritus Researcher
European Centre for Soft Computing.

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