EDITORIAL: Former Emir Jamaat-e-Islami Syed Munawwar Hassan died after a protracted illness in Karachi yesterday. Born in Delhi in undivided sub-continent in 1941, he was elected the emir of Jamaat in 2009, succeeding Qazi Husain Ahmad. After becoming a member of Jamaat in 1967, he served the party by undertaking a slew of varied responsibilities, but his association with party's Islamic Research Academy was a place where he displayed his talents in a highly impressive manner. It was this place from where he successfully published a number of scholarly works deriving themes and argumentations from the writings of great Islamic scholars such as party's founder Abul Aala Maududi and Egypt's Hasan al Banna and others.
Hassan had represented National Students Federation (NSF) and later Islami Jamiat Talba (IJT) at Karachi University from where he did his masters in sociology and Islamic studies. Since those days he had earned the reputation of being an impressive public speaker, having a reputation of powerful oratory.
Hassan was known for his dexterity in examining and studying materials and sources in order to establish facts. According to him, facts are always sacred. Unfortunately, however, he was not known for prudence or craftsmanship; he was found to be struggling to toe the party line at least on one occasion. It is, therefore, believed that his highly controversial remarks in a TV interview had destroyed his re-election prospects for the office of party's emir. In that interview, Hassan had described the Tehreek-e-Taliban militants as "martyrs", triggering a nasty controversy and causing an unnecessary rift between his party and the military.
Be that as it may, higher integrity and greater transparency constituted his personality traits that even his fiercest detractors admired. No doubt Hassan was Jamaat's most recognizable face in Karachi since the exit of party stalwarts such as Mahmood Azam Farooqui and Prof Ghafoor Ahmed from this world. May God Almighty shower His blessings on the departed soul.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020