Religio-Political Paradigm in Pakistan: An Analytical Study on Maulana Abdul Sattar Khan Niazi’s Dynamism

Abstract

Maulana Abdul Sattar Niazi, religious scholar-cum-politician, emerged on the Religio-political scene during pre-partition period. He started his political career as a student leader and his presence was soon noted by all India Muslim League—the AIML (1906-1947) leadership. So, he joined Punjab Muslim Students Federation (PMSF) in 1940s and was able to win the trust of MA Jinnah, the profound echelon of the Muslim politics in South Asia. Maulana Niazi worked day and night for the proliferation of AIML message of separate homeland based on the ‘two-nation theory’. His center of services were two Muslim populated provinces of Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP, now called Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the KP). He vigilantly observed and reported to the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah about the prevailing socio-political situation of the Muslims in those two provinces. After partition, with the dissolution of AIML, he found his own way and worked on different platforms to serve the Muslim polity. In 1970 he finally joined Jamiyyat-i-Ulama-i-Pakistan (est. 1948) and gave his maximum to the religious cause. His services in the religion political milieu were unprecedented and matchless, which have fully been highlighted in the research in hand.