KARACHI: Former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan, Syed Munawwar Hassan has passed away after a protected illness at a local hospital on Friday. Later his body shifted to Masjid Farooq-e-Azam, North Nazimabad where his son, Syed Talha Munawwar, JI deputy chief Dr Mairajul Huda, Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, Secretary Abdul Wahab, naib Dr Osama Razi, Dr Wasay Shakir and Muslim Pervaiz performed obligatory bathe.
JI Pakistan chief Sirajul Haq will lead funeral prayer of Munawwar Hasan at Eid Gah ground Nazimabad after Zuhr prayers today.
Meanwhile, President Dr Arif Alvi, Prime Minister Imran Khan, PML-N president and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Federal Information Minister Shibli Faraz, Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar, Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, Minister Fayyaz-ul-Hasan Chohan, PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and PPP leader Taj Haider expressed their condolence on demise of Munawwar Hasan.
Siraj-ul-Haq, JI leaders including Ameer-ul-Azeem, Liaquat Baloch, Rashid Naseem, Mian Muhammad Aslam, Asadullah Bhutto, Prof Muhammad Ibrahim, Dr fareed Ahmad, Dr Miaraj-ul-Huda, Abdul Ghaffar Aziz, Mualana Abdul Malik, Hafiz Muhammad Idrees, Azhar Iqbal Hasan, Muhammad Asghar, Hafiz Sajid Anwar, Bakhtiar Mani, Syed Waqas, Anjum Jaffri, Qaiser Sharif and others in their messages condoled demise of Munawwar Hasan.
Siraj termed his death loss to nation and Islamic world. Late JI chief had distinction in world Islamic movements, launched 'Go America Go' drive and spent his life for promotion of Islamic values.
As per JI spokesman, Munawwar Hasan was born in August 1941 in Delhi. His father, Syed Ikhlaq Hussain was head master at MB High School Delhi while mother was also a Quran teacher.
Munawwar started his student politics from platform of National Students Federation and became its president in 1959. Later he joined Islami Jamiat Talba (IJT) in June 1960 on influence studying literature of Syed Abul Aala Maudoodi.
He became member of IJT in 1962 and was also nazim IJT Karachi University. He became nazim IJT Karachi in June 1963. He did his masters in Sociology from Karachi University and also done MA in Islamic Studies in 1966.
He served as IJT nazim-e-aala from December 1964 to 1967. He joined JI in 1968 and was also elected member to JI central shoora and working committee.
In general election of March 1977, he was elected MNA from Karachi with highest number of votes.
He launched Nizam-e-Mustafa Movement in 1977, remained Karachi chief from 1989-91. He remained director, Islamic Research Academy and was editor of The Criterion and The Universal Message. He represented JI on various world fora.
He became JI deputy secretary general in 1992 and in 2009 he became 4th chief of party and remained till 2014. He left behind him his widow, son and a daughter besides brothers, Shafiq Hasan and Irshad Hasan along with a number of well wishers to mourn his death.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020