LAHORE, June 25 Mian Tufail Mohammad, former amir of the Jamaat-i-Islami, passed away on Thursday after protracted illness, he was 95.

His funeral prayers will be offered at party headquarters in Mansoora at 4pm on Friday.

He suffered a brain hemorrhage on June 7 and was admitted to the Sheikh Zayed Hospital. He is survived by eight daughters and four sons.

Mian Tufail had served as amir of the Jamaat for 15 years (1972-87).

Born in 1914 in Kapurthala state, Mian Tufail graduated from the Government College, Lahore, with physics and mathematics as majors, in 1935 and completed his LLB in 1937 from the University Law College.

He started legal practice in Jalandhar and moved to his ancestral home a year later as the first Muslim lawyer of the princely state.

Mian Tufail was one of the 75 founding members of the Jamaat when it was formed in 1941.

At an all-India conference of the party held in March 1944, he was appointed its first permanent secretary general. From that moment, he was always in company of party chief Syed Abul Aala Maududi.

Except for periods of imprisonment during various regimes, he worked as JI's secretary general till 1965. From 1966 to 1972, he acted as the West Pakistan party chief and when Syed Maududi resigned as amir in 1972, he was elected to the post for five years. He served the party in that capacity for two more terms.

He was one of the nine leaders of various parties who were tried under the Official Secrets Act during the Ayub regime.

In 1965, a combined opposition was organised against Gen Ayub and Mian Tufail was among its central leaders. He represented his party in the Pakistan Democratic Movement and the Democratic Action Committee.

The Jamaat, under his leadership, developed romance with the army during the 1971 war, especially in East Pakistan. He was an ardent supporter of dictator Gen Ziaul Haq's so-called Islamisation. In 1987, he resigned on health grounds and Qazi Hussain Ahmad was elected to head the party.

Mian Tufail did not support his successor's attempts to give a popular colour to the party and said his policies were against the nature of the Jamaat.

He confined himself to research work of the Idara-e-Ma'arif-i-Islamia in Mansoora.

A translation of Kashaf Al Mahjub and 'Inviting towards Islam and its Requirements', co-authored with Syed Maududi and Amin Ahsan Islahi, were his prominent works.