While highly regarded in radical circles of South Asia and left-wing circles more generally, Ahmad was a controversial figure. According to Pervez Hoodbhoy, warrants of arrest and death sentences were put on him during successive martial law governments in Pakistan. He was indicted in 1971 on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger (who was then President Nixon’s National Security Advisor). Kabir Babar called Ahmad "one of the most outstanding thinkers ever to originate from the Subcontinent. His analyses of the major political events and trends of the 20th century were noted for their astuteness and predictive power." Edward Said listed Ahmad as one of the two most important inﬂuences on his intellectual development, praising the latter's writings on South Asia especially as informative.