Abdul Haq completed his religious education at Darul Uloom Deoband in Deoband, India. He taught at Deoband for four years until difficulties arose due to the independence of Pakistan. In 1947, he founded Darul Uloom Haqqania in Akora Khattak, one of the first Islamic seminaries to be established in Pakistan. He taught hadith at the madrasah for the rest of his life and was well-known by the title "Shaykh al-Hadith".
Maulana Sami-ul-Haq
MaulanaSami-ul-Haq (1937–2018) or Maulana Sami-ul-Haq Haqqani (Urdu: مولانا سمیع الحق, Samī'u’l-Ḥaq; 18 December 1937 – 2 November 2018) was a Pakistanireligious scholar and senator.[8] He was known as the Father of Taliban in Pakistan for the role his seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania played in the graduation of most Taliban leaders and commanders.[9] With his party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S), which split from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) because Haq supported Zia-ul-Haq and his policies, he was a member of the Senate of Pakistan from 1985 to 1991 and again from 1991 to 1997.[10] After his assassination in 2018 his son MaulanaHamid Ul Haq Haqqani became the chancellor of the seminary and the ameer or head of the political party.
He had also served as a member of the Senate of Pakistan.[19][20] He formed Muttahida Deeni Mahaz (United Religious Front), an alliance of relatively small religio-political parties, to participate in the 2013 general election.[21][22]
Haq stated that the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard G. Olson, visited him in July 2013 to discuss the situation of the region.[12] Haq sympathized with the Taliban, stating: "Give them just one year and they will make the whole of Afghanistan happy. ... The whole of Afghanistan will be with them ... Once the Americans leave, all of this will happen within a year ... As long as they are there, Afghans will have to fight for their freedom," Haq said. "It's a war for freedom. It will not stop until outsiders leave."[12]
In October 2018, an Afghan delegation comprising Ashraf Ghani government representatives and diplomats stationed in Pakistan, met Samiul Haq asking him to play a role in restoring peace in Afghanistan by bringing the Afghan Taliban back to the dialogue table.[23]
Assassination of Maulana Sami-ul-Haq
On 2 November 2018, Sami-ul-Haq was assassinated at around 7:00 pm PST at his residence in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi.[24] He was stabbed multiple times.[25] He was taken to the nearby Safari Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The cause of his death was excessive blood loss due to the multiple stabbing across his body, including his face.[26] According to his guard, he had intended to join the protests against the acquittal of Asia Bibi in Islamabad, but he could not join it due to road blockage.[27]
Following the assassination, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government declared a day of mourning.[28] Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the murder saying "the country has suffered a great loss".[29]
On 3 November 2018, he was buried in the premises of Darul Uloom Haqqania in his hometown of Akora Khattak in the afternoon. The funeral prayer was offered at the Khushal Khan Degree College and led by his son Hamid Ul Haq Haqqani.[28] It was attended by a large number of political leaders and his followers. As part of the investigation into his murder, the police questioned his domestic staff.[30]
Books of Maulana Sami-ul Haq
The editor-in-chief of the monthly journal Al-Haq until his death, he has been described as "a prolific Islamist writer" who "authored more than 20 books", some of his works including :[31]
Islām aur ʻaṣr-i ḥāz̤ir, 1976. On Islam and the modern world, collected articles.
Qādiyān sey Isrāʼīl tak, 1978. Critical assessment of the Ahmadiyya movement.
Kārvān-i āk̲h̲irat, 1990. Collection of condolence letters on the death of various South Asian religious scholars.
Ṣalibī dahshatgardī aur ʻālam-i Islām, 2004. Collection of interviews discussing Taliban movement, United States of America and West interests in Afghanistan.
Qādiyānī fitnah aur Millat-i Islāmiyah kā mauʼqqif, 2011. Criticism of the Ahmadiyya movement, co-authored with MaulanaMuhammad Taqi Usmani.
K̲h̲ut̤bāt-i mashāhīr, 2015. Collected sermons on religious life in Islam, Islam and conduct of life and Islam and politics, in 10 volumes.
Afghan Taliban: War of Ideology : Struggle for Peace, 2015. His last notable book, on the peace process in Afghanistan.
In 2018 Islamic Scholars in Akora KhattakKhyber PakhtunkhwaPakistan on Sunday named Maulana Anwar-ul-Haq Haqqani as new head of Darul Uloom Haqqania Akora Khattak after the assassination of his elder brother MaulanaSami-ul-Haq in Rawalpindi.The appointment was made after religious scholars unanimously agreed to appoint Maulana Anwaar, brother of assassinated Maulana Samiul Haq, as mohtamim (head) of the seminary during a dastarbandi.A large number of ulema and religious scholars including Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi and Babar Awan were present on this occasion.The participants offered Fatiha after the dastarbandi ceremony and prayed for the departed soul. They also shed light on various aspects of Maulana Samiul Haq's life and paid tribute to his services he rendered for Pakistan and Religion.[32]
Functioning and selection process
With a boarding school and a high school with thousands of students, as well as 12 affiliated smaller madrassas, offering an eight-year Master of Arts in Islamic studies followed by a PhD after two additional years, journalist Ahmed Rashid, who calls it the most popular madrassa in northern Pakistan, also notes its strict selection process : in February 1999, out of 15,000 applicants only 400 new places were offered, while there are reserved places for 400 Afghan students as well.[33]
^ abc"Pakistani 'Father of Taliban' keeps watch over loyal disciples". Maria Golovnina and Sheree Sardar. Reuters News Agency website. 15 September 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2018. ... Haq said, alternating between Pakistan's official Urdu and his native Pashto language. Haq, who speaks fluent Arabic, ...
^Westhead, Rick (13 May 2009). "Inside Pakistan's Jihad U". The Toronto Star. In 1997, Sami ul-Haq received a phone call from Omar, the Taliban leader. The Taliban had been defeated in an attempt to capture Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan and Omar needed reinforcements. "Mullah Omar personally rang me to request that I let these students go to Afghanistan on leave since they are needed there," ul-Haq was quoted as saying in Pakistan journalist Ahmed Rashid's book, Taliban. Ul-Haq agreed to help Omar and briefly shut down his school to help his students arrange passage through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.
^Dalrymple, William. "Inside the Madrasas". The New York Review of Books. Here, straddling the noisy, truck-thundering Islamabad highway, stands the Haqqania, one of the most radical of the religious schools called madrasas. Many of the Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, were trained at this institution.
^"Five DPC parties plan new electoral alliance". Dawn. 6 December 2012. Maulana Sami was also among the founders of a six-party religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis Amal ahead of 2002 polls that later ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan under Musharraf regime.
^Wasim, Amir (20 April 2013). "Few election alliances this time". Dawn. The Muttahida Deeni Mahaz (MDM), a group of five small religious parties and groups headed by Maulana Samiul Haq of the Jamiat-Ulema-i-Islam-Sami (JUI-S), is the only electoral alliance that is fielding its candidates in the May 11 elections.
