Mufti Mahmud

Mufti Mehmood (1919 – 1980) was a Pakistani politician who was one of the founding members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).[1]

Mufti Mehmood
Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
In office 1 March 1972 – 15 February 1973
Governor	Arbab Sikandar Khan Aslam Khattak
Preceded by	Sardar Bahadur Khan
Succeeded by	Inayatullah Khan Gandapur
Secretary General of Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (F)
In office 1968–1980
Preceded by	Maulana Abdullah Darkhawasti
President of Wafaq ul Madaris Al-Arabia, Pakistan
In office 15 May 1978 – 14 October 1980
Preceded by	Muhammad Yousuf Banuri
Succeeded by	Muhammad Idrees Mirti
Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan
In office 26 March 1977 – 5 July 1977
Constituency	NA-18 (D.I. Khan)
In office 14 April 1972 – 10 January 1977
Constituency	NW-13 (D.I. Khan)
In office 8 June 1962 – 7 June 1965
Constituency	NW-6 (D.I. Khan-I)
Personal details
Born	1919 Kulachi, NWFP, British India
Died	1980 (aged 61) Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Nationality	British Indian (1919-1947) Pakistani (1947-1980)
Political party	Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
Children	Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Maulana Lutf ur Rehman Atta-ur-Rehman
Alma mater	Madrasa Shahi, Moradabad
Occupation	Politician Scholar Teacher

Early life and career

Born in January 1919, he was an ethnic Marwat Pashtun from Abdul Khel, Dera Ismail Khan District, colonial India (now Pakistan). He received his religious education at Madrasa Shahi, Moradabad, UP[2] and graduated from the Darul Uloom Deoband.[3] In 1941, he worked as a teacher in Isakhel, Mianwali.[1]

At the time of the Indian independence movement, Mufti Mahmud opposed the partition of colonial India.[4][5]

In Pakistan

He worked as a teacher in Madrassa Qasim-ul-Uloom in Multan, Punjab in 1950. Later in his career, he held positions of Chief Mudarras in charge of Education, Chief Mufti, Sheikh-ul-Hadith and Muhtamim. He issued at least 25,000 Fatwas in his lifetime.[1] Mufti Mahmud was a critic of family planning programme of Ayub Khan's government. He participated in the elections for the National Assembly for the first time under Ayub Khan's 'Basic Democracy Program' and defeated all his opponents in 1962.[1] He also opposed the 'One Unit Scheme'.On 8 January 1968, in Dacca, then in East Pakistan, Mufti Mahmud was one of the key leaders of Jamhoori Majlis-e-Amal that opposed Ayub Khan's regime. In the 1970 General Elections, Mufti Mahmud had a landslide victory against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency.[1]

After the 1970 General Elections in Pakistan, he became the president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam founded by Maulana Shabir Ahmed Usmani. His party went into a coalition with the National Awami Party & Pakistan Peoples Party for the 1970 Pakistani general election. In the 1970s, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam received significant funding from Saudi Arabia.[6]

On 1 March 1972, he was elected as the Chief Minister of the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa during the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto regime in Pakistan. He, along with his cabinet, resigned in protest at the dismissal of the NAP–JUI (F) coalition government in Balochistan on 14 February 1973.[1]

During his tenure as Chief Minister, he introduced many reforms, such as forbidding the use of alcohol, announcing Urdu as the official language in Government offices, ban on interest in financial transactions and declared Friday as the official holiday in his province.[1]

Mufti Mahmud played a vital role in Tehreek-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, a religious movement which has highlighted the beliefs of the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Pakistan, in 1953 and again in 1974. He led a team of Islamic scholars which worked for the declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims in 1974.

He supported Afghan-Jihad against USSR in 1979 (see also Soviet–Afghan War).

Death and legacy

He died on 14 October 1980 in Karachi, Sindh at the age of 61. He was buried in his hometown Abdul Khel, Paniala, Dera Ismail Khan District. His son Fazal-ur-Rehman is a politician who leads the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party in Pakistan.[7]

Literary works

• Tafsīr-i Maḥmūd, translation of and commentary on the Qur'an, in 3 volumes
• Fatāvʹa Muftī Maḥmūd, his fatwas, in 11 volumes
• Az̲ān-i saḥar: Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd ke inṭerviyuz aur taqārīr kā majmūʻah, collected speeches and interviews
• K̲h̲ut̤bāt-i Maḥmūd: majmūʻah-yi taqārīr-i mufakkir-i Islām, Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd, collection of his speeches

Books about him

• Savāniḥ-i ḥayāt: Muftī Maḥmūd, vazīr-i aʻlá-yi Sarḥad, janral sekraṭrī Jamʻiyat-i ʻUlamāʼ-yi Islām, Pākistān by Z̈iyāʼurraḥmān Fārūqī, 1972
• Muftī Maḥmūd kī siyāsat by Nūrulḥaq Quraishī, 1974
• Maulānā Mufti Mahmūd by Naʻim Āsī, 1977
• Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd ... kī siyāsī zindagī by Gul Nāyāb K̲h̲ān Citrālī, 2002
• Mufakkir-i Islām, qāʼid-i Islāmī inqilāb Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd ... ek darvesh siyāsatdān by Sayyid Anvar Qidvāʼī, 2003
• Savāniḥ qāʼid-i millat Ḥaẓrat Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd by ʻAbdulqayyūm Ḥaqqānī, 2003
• Muftī Maḥmūd kā daur-i ḥukūmat by Ashfāq Hāshmī, 2004
• Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd ke ḥairat angez vāqiʻāt by Momin K̲h̲ān ʻUs̲mānī, 2009
• Muftī-yi Aʻẓam Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd kī ʻilmī, dīnī aur siyāsī k̲h̲idmāt by ʻAbdulḥakīm Akbarī, 2010
• Afkār-i Maḥmūd : Shaik̲h̲ulhind Maulānā Maḥmūd Ḥasan va mufakkir-i Islām Maulānā Muftī Maḥmūd kī ḥayāt o k̲h̲idmāt kā ḥasīn tazkirah by Muḥammad Fārūq Quraishī, 2017

See also

• Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F)
• Persecution of Ahmadis
• Chief Ministers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
• Syed Muhammad Miyan Deobandi

References

1. Profile of Mufti Mahmud on storyofpakistan.com website Updated 5 January 2009, Retrieved 9 April 2019
2. Maulana Muhammad Jahan Yaqub. "شیخ الحدیث مفتی محمودؒ…ایک عہد ساز شخصیت". Baseerat Online. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
3. Syed Mehboob Rizwi. History of The Dar al-Ulum Deoband (Volume 2) (PDF). Translated by Prof. Murtaz Husain F. Quraishi. Idara-e-Ehtemam, Dar al-Ulum Deoband. p. 124. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
4. Pirzada, Sayyid A. S.; Pirzada, Syed Sharifuddin (2000). The Politics of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Pakistan: 1971-1977. Oxford University Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-19-579302-4. Mufti Mahmud, in his speech on the occasion, pointed out that "the JUIP was against a division of the country". He said that since the party had opposed the partition of India (linking with the stance of ...
5. Raza, Atrooba (21 March 2020). "20 Muslim Leaders who opposed Pakistan Movement & Quaid-e-Azam" (in Urdu). Election Box. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
6. Halverson, Jeffry R. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 118. ISBN 9781137473578. By the 1970s, the JUI, under the leadership of Mawlana Mufti Mahmud (d. 1980) was a chief recipient of the aforementioned Wahhabite-Athari support from the Gulf monarchies, chiefly Saudi Arabia.
7. In defence of Taliban: Fazl's remarks spark furore in Afghanistan The Express Tribune (newspaper) Published 17 November 2014, Retrieved 9 April 2019

External links