Sufi Muhammad
Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan (Urdu: صوفی محمد بن الحضرت حسن; born 1933 – 11 July 2019) was a Pakistani Sunni Islamist cleric and militant, and the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a militant group (declared a terrorist outfit and banned in 2002) vying for implementation of Sharia in Pakistan. It operated mainly in the Dir, Swat, and Malakand districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Sufi Muhammad صوفی محمد | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1933 Maidan, Dir, British India |
| Died | 11 July 2019 (aged 85–86) Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan |
| Children | At least one daughter |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Jurisprudence | Ḥanbalī |
| Creed | Atharī |
Sufi Muhammad was jailed for sending thousands of volunteers to Afghanistan to fight the U.S. intervention in 2001. However, he was freed in 2008 after he renounced violence.
He was the father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, who assumed the leadership of TNSM during Sufi's imprisonment.
He was described by BBC as a "follower" of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi Islamic school of thought, and by the Jamestown Foundation as one of the "active leaders" of Jamaat-e-Islami in the 1980s.