Mufti Mahmud


Mufti Mehmood, was a colonial Indian and Pakistani politician who was a member and one of the founding members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam.

Early life and career

Born in January 1919, he was an ethnic Marwat Pashtun from Abdul Khel, Dera Ismail Khan District, colonial India. He received his religious education at Madrasa Shahi, Moradabad, UP and graduated from the Darul Uloom Deoband in 1365 Hijri. In 1941, he worked as a teacher in Isakhel, Mianwali.
At the time of the Indian independence movement, Mufti Mahmud opposed the partition of colonial India.

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 Fatawa in his lifetime. Mufti Mahmud was critic of Ayub Khan government's family planning. He opposed President Ayub Khan's 'One Unit Scheme'. Mufti Mahmud 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.
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.
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 coalition government in Balochistan on 14 February 1973.
He died on 14 October 1980 in Karachi, Sindh at age 61. He was buried in his hometown Abdul Khel, Paniala, Dera Ismail Khan District. His son Fazal-ur-Rehman is a politician who heads the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party in Pakistan.

Literary works