KARACHI: Thousands of people from all segments of society attended the funeral prayers of renowned religious scholar Mufti Muhammad Rafi Usmani at Darul Uloom Karachi in the Korangi area on Sunday morning.

The funeral prayers were led by his younger brother and Wifaqul Madaris president Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani. A number of political leaders, senior government officials, media persons and notables attended his last rites.

He was later laid to rest at a small cemetery in the same place close to his father Mufti Muhammad Shafi Usmani’s grave.

Prominent among those who attended the funeral were chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori, Jamaat-i-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, Pak Sarzameen Party’s Syed Mustafa Kamal and Anis Kaimkhani, Rauf Siddiqui of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, Wafa­qul Madaris Al Arabiya Pakistan’s General Secre­tary Qari Mohammad Hanif Jalandhri, Maulana Anwarul Haq Haqqani and Maulana Syed Suleiman Banori.

Mufti Rafi Usmani died on Friday night in the metropolis after a prolonged illness. He was 86. He is survived by a wife, a son and three daughters.

Born in July 1936 in the town of Deoband of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Mufti Usmani migrated to Pakistan with his family in 1947. He was chief of Darul Uloom Karachi since 1986. In 1995, the clerics and scholars representing the Deoband school of thought appointed him as Mufti-i-Azam, or grand mufti.

He had also served as the vice president of Wifaqul Madaris Al Arabia and as a member of the syndicates of various public and private sector universities including the University of Karachi and Dow Univ­ersity of Health Sciences. He had been a senior member of Ruet-i-Hilal Com­mittee, Council of Islamic Ideology and also served as an adviser to the Shariat appellate bench of the Supreme Court.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2022