Mufti Mahmud

Maulana Mufti Mahmud (Pashto: مفتى محمود‎), was a cleric, member of Congress Party, and one of the founding members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).

Biography

Born in January 1919, he was an ethnic Marwat Pashtun from Abdul Khel. He was a militant activist of the Indian National Congress, participating in the Indian Independence Movement in the 1940s. He opposed the idea of partition and campaigned against the Muslim League.

After the 1970 General Elections, he became the president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam founded by Shabir Ahmed Usmani. And into a coalition with the National Awami Party & Pakistan Peoples Party. In the 1970s, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam received significant funding from Saudi Arabia.^[1]

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

Mufti Mahmud played a vital role in Tehreek-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, a religious movement which has persecuted Ahmadis in Pakistan. He led a team of Islamic Scholars which worked for the declaration of Ahmadi Muslims as non-Muslims in 1974. He got influence and popularity after this issue.

He supported Afghan-Jihad against USSR (see also Soviet-Afghan War). He died on 14 October 1980. He was buried in Abdul Khel, Paniala, his home town. His son Fazal-ur-Rahman would become a notable in the national politics of Pakistan as well.

References

1. 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.

See also

• Criticism of Pakistan
• Persecution of Ahmadis
• Ordinance XX