Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman

Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman, is a politician form Pakistan leading a Islam centric party called Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. Additionally he is also Secretary General of MMAP (Muttihida Majlis e Amal Pakistan)

Maulana was born on June 19, 1953 in Abdul Khel, Dera Ismail Khan Khyber Pakhtoon Kuwah province formerly known as NWFP. He Matriculated in 1970 from Multan. He is an alumnae of Dar-al-Ulum Haqania, Akura, Khatak. He actively started taking part in the Islamic union at the student level and was selected to preside Jamiat Talaba-e-Islam, NWFP in 1974.

In 1979, he started teaching in Jamia Qasim-ul-Ulum Multan as a religious scholar. After the sad demise of his father Maulana Mufti Mahmood, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman was entrusted and enthroned with the mutual consent to take care of the scholarly seat of learning. This dynamic leader was exiled from the province Balochistan under the orders of Chief Martial Law Administrator in the year 1980. His quest for enforcement of Islam could not be compromised despite all repressive measures at by the government including sending Maulana to jail for more than four times.

Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman interview with BBC about his politics and his struggle in Pakistan. He has expresses his views about inherited politics and calls it a ritual of prophets. He aalso tell about his career in politics and role of his religious learning. He tell BBC’s Ejaz Mahar that he is a learned scholar of Islam but does not claim to supercede any one on.

He has been successful in the elections held in 1988 and 1993. While exercising his duties as a parliamentarian he put forth the point of view of Pakistan government at several international platforms; including his address to the UN committee for Human Rights, as well as the General Assembly of UN on the collective issues of Palestine and Kashmir in 1994.

Fazl ur-Rahman inherited from his father public support in their native area of Dera Ismail Khan. Of the four general elections that Fazl ur-Rahman contested since 1988 from his national assembly constituency, NA-18, he won two with convincing margins. In 1990 and 1997 he lost allegedly[citation needed] because of engineered results that entrusted heavy mandates to the Sharifs of Lahore on both occasions. It was because of the family’s spport in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency that Maulana Mufti Mahmud defeated the then invincible Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the 1970 general elections.

Fazl ur-Rahman’s politics, like his father’s, has been at odds with the Muslim League. The father was in Jama’at Ulema-i-Hind (Madani group) which shared the views of the Congress on the partition issue. Fazl ur-Rahman remained in the camp of the political alliances and parties that were opposed to Nawaz Sharif’s League. Only once did he contest the election in alliance with the PML, in 1990, and then too he lost.

Fazl ur-Rahman built his public image by supporting Zulfaqir Ali Bhutto’s daughter Benazir Bhutto and the PPP during her second term as the prime minister.