The Quds Foundation has mourned the death of veteran politician philanthropist human rights worker and a passionate voice for the cause of Palestine’s liberation from Israeli occupation Muzaffar Hashmi who died of cardiac arrest at the age of 80 in Karachi Pakistan on Tuesday.
Late Hashmi was the president of Palestine Foundation a body of intellectuals and rights workers for the cause of Palestine.
He was vice president of the Karachi chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami the party which he served all his life since as a student elected member of parliament in 1985 and 1993 and remained member of parliament’s Kashmir Committee.
He was a member of Board of Trustees of Beirut based The Quds Foundation and raised the Palestine issue at various international forums.
He also served as in charge of water supply in City Council between 1979 and 1983 when another colleague of his party Abdul Sattar Afghani was city’s mayor.
He was also the head of the JI’s Foreign Affairs Desk and also served in the editorial committees of different magazines and periodicals raising the voice for the liberation of Palestine and Kashmir.
Born in 1938 in Indore before partition of India and Pakistan Hashmi received early education in Lucknow and also studied at Allama Shibli Nomani’s Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulema.
His father Maulana Rafi Hashmi was a Islamic scholar and a close aide of Jamaat-e-Islami founder Maulana Abul Aala Maudoodi and was among the founding members of the party. His father later set up JI chapter in Eastern Pakistan – now Bangladesh on the directives of Maulana Maudoodi.
His death was widely mourned by Muslim scholars in Asia and Middle East.
The grand cleric Lebanon who is also Imam of Al-Quds mosque in Sidon and head of Beirut based union of Muslim scholars for Palestine Sheikh Maher Hammoud termed his death as a great loss for Muslim world.
Hammoud paid rich tributes to Muzaffar Hashmi and said he would be remembered for his matchless services for Palestine.
