Maulana Fazlur Rehman: Biography, Education, Family, the JUI-F and His Influence on Pakistan’s Politics (2026)

Who is Maulana Fazlur Rehman?

Here is the puzzle about him. His party has never won more than a modest number of seats. It has never ruled the country. Yet for thirty-five years almost every government has wanted him on its side, and almost every opposition has asked him to lead it.

The reason is skill. He is the best negotiator in Pakistani politics. He knows the Constitution, he knows the numbers in Parliament and he knows exactly what his handful of votes is worth on any given day.

He also commands something no other politician has: a disciplined network of seminaries and students across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan that can fill a road with marchers on a few days’ notice.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman wears the turban of a cleric, but he plays the game of parliamentary politics more coolly than most of the men in suits around him.

Family: the son of Mufti Mahmud

He was born into politics and scholarship at once.

His father, Mufti Mahmud, was a leading religious scholar and the head of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. In 1972 Mufti Mahmud became Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province, now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He resigned the next year in protest when the federal government dismissed the government of neighbouring Balochistan. He later led the nine-party opposition alliance against Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977.

The family home is Abdul Khel, a village in Paharpur tehsil of Dera Ismail Khan, in the dry south of the province.

Politics has stayed in the family. A brother has been a senator and federal minister, and a son has been a member of the National Assembly and a federal minister.

Education

He was educated in two systems.

• The seminary. He completed the traditional course of Islamic studies, the Dars-i-Nizami, in 1979. His public biography names Darul Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak among the places where he studied.
• The university. He took a BA from the University of Peshawar in 1983. His public biography also lists a master’s degree from Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

What is the JUI?

To understand him you must understand his party.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam means “Assembly of Islamic Scholars”. It grew out of the Deobandi school, a reform movement in Sunni Islam that began at a seminary in the Indian town of Deoband in 1866. Most of the seminaries in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Pashtun belt of Balochistan follow that school.

The party wants laws based on Islamic teaching. But its method has always been elections and Parliament. Its strength lies among Pashtuns in the south of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the north of Balochistan.

Why the “F”?

In the 1980s the party split. One group, led by Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, worked with the military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq. The other, led by the young Fazlur Rehman, opposed him. The two became the JUI-S and the JUI-F, after their leaders’ initials. The F group became by far the larger.

His assembly profile lists the party as “JUI (P)”, the name under which it is registered for elections.

Pakistan’s main religious parties

Taking over at twenty-seven

Mufti Mahmud died in October 1980. The party chose his son, then only twenty-seven, as its secretary general.

It was a dangerous time to lead a party. General Zia had banned political activity. The young leader took the JUI into the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, the alliance led by the PPP that campaigned against military rule. He spent time in detention for it.

This choice shaped his reputation. A cleric had sided with a secular party, led by a woman, against a general who claimed to be Islamising the country. It was the first sign of how he would always do politics: principle where possible, and alliances wherever useful.

Into Parliament

He was first elected to the National Assembly in 1988, when party politics returned after Zia’s death.

The 1993 post is worth a note. Benazir Bhutto, in her second government, made him chairman of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee. It gave him contacts abroad that few clerics have.

2002: the high point

The election of 2002 was the best his side has ever had.

Six religious parties joined in one alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA. Anger at the American invasion of Afghanistan was running high. The alliance swept the Frontier province, formed the government there and shared power in Balochistan.

In the National Assembly he stood for Prime Minister and came second, behind Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. From 2004 to 2007 he was Leader of the Opposition.

The Hasba Bill

The MMA’s government in Peshawar passed the Hasba Bill. It would have created an official to enforce Islamic morals in public life. The Supreme Court struck down its key parts as unconstitutional. The episode is still cited by those who fear what religious parties would do with full power.

The Kashmir committee

After 2008 he supported the PPP government, and after 2013 the PML-N government. In both periods he chaired Parliament’s special committee on Kashmir, a post with the rank and perks of a federal minister.

Critics said the committee achieved little and that the post was a reward for his support. He said he had kept the issue alive in Parliament.

Attacks on his life

He has been a target of militants, which surprises people who assume a cleric must be their ally.

• In 2011 suicide bombers attacked his convoy twice in two days in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Many people were killed. He survived.
• In 2014 a suicide bomber struck his vehicle after a rally in Quetta. He again survived.
• In July 2023 a bomb tore through a JUI-F workers’ convention in Bajaur, killing dozens.

The reason is that he rejects the militants’ central claim. He says Pakistan’s Constitution is Islamic and that armed struggle against the state is wrong. For groups such as the so-called Islamic State, that makes him an enemy.

His relations with the Afghan Taliban are a separate matter. Many of their leaders studied in seminaries of the same tradition. He has kept channels open to them, and he travelled to Kabul in early 2024.

2018 to 2022: bringing down a government

The election of 2018 was a disaster for him. He lost his own seats. Imran Khan’s party took power in Islamabad and in his home province.

He refused to accept the result. He said the election had been rigged, and he wanted the opposition to refuse to take its seats. The bigger parties did not agree.

He then set out to do it his own way.

1. In 2018 he was the joint opposition’s candidate for President and lost to Dr Arif Alvi.
2. In October 2019 he led the Azadi March, a convoy of tens of thousands from Karachi to Islamabad. His followers camped in the capital for about two weeks. The government did not fall, but the march showed his street power.
3. In September 2020 the opposition parties formed the Pakistan Democratic Movement, the PDM. They chose him as its president.
4. In April 2022 the alliance and its partners removed Imran Khan through a vote of no confidence.

A man without a seat in Parliament had led the campaign that changed the government.

2024: defeat at home, a seat in Balochistan

In the election of 8 February 2024 he lost in Dera Ismail Khan to the PTI’s Ali Amin Gandapur. He won NA-265 Pishin, a Pashtun district in Balochistan where his party is strong.

He again said the election had been rigged, this time by the very forces he had earlier worked with. He declined to join the new coalition of the PML-N and the PPP and sat on the opposition benches.

That left him in an odd spot: in opposition beside the PTI, the party he had spent four years fighting.

The amendments: kingmaker again

The 26th Amendment, October 2024

The government wanted to change the Constitution to reshape the top courts. It needed a two-thirds majority in both houses. It was a few votes short. His party had those votes.

For weeks, ministers, opposition leaders and envoys queued at his house in Islamabad. He bargained hard. The final text was much narrower than the government’s first draft. It also included a deadline for ending interest in the economy and, soon afterwards, a law on the registration of seminaries that his party had long wanted.

He voted for it. The PTI did not.

The 27th Amendment, November 2025

A year later the government brought another amendment. This time he said no.

According to press reports, his party decided in early November not to vote for it. The amendment was passed without his party’s votes.

On 25 November 2025, after his party’s council had met, he formally rejected it at a press conference in Islamabad. He called it a threat to democracy. He objected that clauses dropped from the earlier amendment had been brought back, that the opposition had not been consulted and that the majority behind it was not genuine. Reports also said he objected to the immunity it gave to certain office-holders.

Where he stands in 2026

• He backed Mehmood Khan Achakzai as Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly.
• In June 2026 his party made an electoral alliance with the PPP in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, his public biography records.
• He has said his cooperation with the PTI is limited to matters inside Parliament and is not a wider alliance.
• A report in September 2026 said his party’s general council would meet in Peshawar on 19 and 20 September to decide whether to join a PTI protest. The outcome was not found for this article.
• In July 2026 a court in Gujranwala issued notices to him over a speech, his public biography says. No further detail was found.

So in the autumn of 2026 he is doing what he has always done: keeping every door open.

What supporters and critics say

Supporters say he has kept religious politics inside the Constitution. He has told his followers to vote and march, not to fight. He stood against two military rulers. And he has paid for his stand with attacks on his life.

Critics say he is an opportunist who has sat with every government in turn. They note that he fought the PTI for years and now shares the opposition benches with it. Opponents taunt him with a nickname that comes from an old allegation about fuel permits in the 1990s; the allegation was never proved in court and he rejects it. Women’s rights groups and liberals oppose his party’s stand on laws about women and family. And many ask what his long chairmanship of the Kashmir committee achieved.

Each view has merit. He is both a man of principle on some matters and a hard bargainer on the rest. In a system of coalitions, that mixture is exactly what keeps a small party relevant.

Words used in this article

Timeline: Maulana Fazlur Rehman at a glance

Why his story matters

• It shows how small parties gain power in a coalition system. A dozen votes at the right moment can count for more than a hundred at the wrong one.
• It shows that religious politics in Pakistan is not one thing. A cleric can be a constitutionalist, a dealmaker and a target of militants at the same time.
• It shows the value of staying power. He has outlasted three military rulers and more than a dozen prime ministers.

To follow the votes he bargains over, read our explainers on the National Assembly, the Senate of Pakistan and the vote of no confidence.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• National Assembly of Pakistan, member profile: Moulana Fazl-ur-Rahman — read on 8 October 2026.
• Wikipedia, “Fazal-ur-Rehman (politician)” — biography as last edited on 3 October 2026; its opening description was not used.
• Daily Times, “Fazlur Rehman rejects 27th Constitutional Amendment” — November 2025.
• Daily Times, “Fazl terms 27th Amendment a threat to democracy”
• Aaj English, “JUI-F to oppose any amendment undermining democracy, says Fazl” — November 2025.
• Dunya News, “Fazlur Rehman hints at Islamabad march, condemns 27th Amendment”
• The Pakistan Connect, “JUI-F to decide on PTI protest participation at crucial Sept 19-20 meeting” — 11 September 2026.