1. Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan was a Pakistani Sunni Salafi cleric and militant, and the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, a militant group vying for implementation of Sharia in Pakistan.
15 Facts About Sufi Muhammad
1. 2.
Sufi Muhammad was jailed for sending thousands of volunteers to Afghanistan to fight the US intervention in 2001.
3.
Sufi Muhammad was the father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, who assumed the leadership of TNSM during Sufi's imprisonment.
4.
Sufi Muhammad was described by BBC as a "follower" of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi Salafist Islamic school of thought, and by the Jamestown Foundation as one of the "active leaders" of Jamaat-e-Islami in the 1980s.
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Sufi Muhammad, born in 1933 in Maidan, Lower Dir District, and received religious education at Panjpir, Swabi.
6.
In October 2001, following the September 11 attacks, Sufi Muhammad crossed into Afghanistan with thousands of his followers to help the Taliban fight the US-led forces.
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Sufi Muhammad remained in prison until 2008, when he agreed in talks with the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to use his influence to work towards peace in the region.
8.
Maulana Sufi Muhammad took part in negotiations with the government that led to the announcement of a temporary ceasefire in the Malakand region on 16 February 2009.
9.
Sufi Muhammad agreed to travel to Swat to discuss peace with Fazlullah and his followers.
10.
In early April 2009, Sufi Muhammad ended support for peace negotiations stating that the government was stalling the implementation of sharia courts in the Swat valley.
11.
On 19 April 2009, Sufi Muhammad declared that "democracy was un-Islamic" and that decisions made in the qazi courts could not be appealed in Pakistan's central judicial system.
12.
Sufi Muhammad ordered the central government to withdraw all judges from Malakand within four days and to set up a Darul Qaza, an Islamic supreme court, to hear appeals from local Sharia courts.
13.
In January 2011, Sufi Muhammad denied to an anti-terrorism court that he had any links to the anti-state Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and that he only sought enforcement of sharia in Malakand.
14.
Sufi Muhammad was indicted on sedition charges by an anti-terrorism court on 7 February 2015.
15.
Sufi Muhammad was released on bail on medical grounds in January 2018 by the Peshawar High Court.