Zain Qureshi: Biography, Age, Education, Family and Political Career of Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s Son (2026)

Who is Zain Qureshi?

Here is the simplest way to see him. Zain Qureshi is an heir who had to take over early.

He was raised to inherit two things from his father: a seat in Parliament and the guardianship of one of the most revered shrines in South Asia. The plan was that he would learn slowly, at his father’s side.

Instead, in August 2023 his father was taken to prison and has not come home. At thirty-seven, the son was left to hold the family’s political base in Multan, fight an election without a party symbol and find his own way through the most dangerous period his party has known.

Zain Qureshi was born to inherit a political house. He has had to defend it while its head is locked away, and before he had finished learning how.

The family

He belongs to the Qureshi family of Multan, hereditary keepers of the shrine of the thirteenth-century saint Bahauddin Zakariya.

The title Makhdoom marks the head, or a senior member, of a saint’s family. The keeper of the shrine is the spiritual guide of a very large following across southern Punjab and Sindh. In elections, that devotion is a powerful asset.

He is his father’s only son. He has sisters, one of whom has also stood for election.

The shrine he stands to inherit

The saint at the centre of the family’s story, Bahauddin Zakariya, lived in the thirteenth century. He brought one of the great Sufi orders to this part of the subcontinent and made Multan a centre of learning. His tomb, a square brick building under a white dome on the old fort mound, is among the oldest and most visited shrines in Pakistan. Beside it stands the still larger tomb of his grandson.

Every year hundreds of thousands of pilgrims come for the saint’s festival, many of them on foot from Sindh. The head of the family presides.

Two points are worth knowing.

• The buildings and their income have been managed by a government department since the 1960s, not by the family.
• The spiritual office remains hereditary. The keeper blesses devotees, settles their disputes and is treated by them with deep reverence.

It is that second role, and the loyalty that goes with it, which carries over into politics. His father holds it now. In the ordinary course it will pass to him.

Education

His Punjab Assembly profile records two degrees.

• He graduated from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, in 2008. The university is named after the saint whose shrine his family keeps.
• He graduated again from Middlesex University, London, in 2010.

Early career

Before politics he had two experiences outside the family’s world.

• In 2009 he spent time as a legislative fellow in the office of a United States senator in Washington. His father was Foreign Minister at the time, and the placement drew criticism in Pakistan when it became known.
• From 2009 to 2012 he worked as a relationship manager at one of Pakistan’s large private banks.

A legislative fellowship is a short placement in which a young graduate works in a legislator’s office, answering letters, researching bills and watching how laws are made. Thousands of people from around the world do such placements in Washington each year. What made his unusual was the timing. The senator concerned was then steering a large American aid package for Pakistan through Congress, and the fellow in his office was the son of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister. Critics at home said it looked improper.

His assembly profile lists his occupation as agriculturist, the usual description for members of landowning families.

2018: into the National Assembly

In the general election of July 2018 the family fielded two candidates in Multan.

• His father stood in one National Assembly seat and won. He became Foreign Minister.
• He himself stood in NA-157 Multan-IV and won.

Father and son sat in the same house. It was a high point for the family, with one shadow. His father had also contested a seat in the Punjab Assembly, hoping, many believed, to become Chief Minister. He lost it to a young independent.

Parliamentary Secretary for Finance

On 27 September 2018 the Prime Minister appointed him Parliamentary Secretary for Finance.

A parliamentary secretary is not a minister. He is a member of the assembly who answers questions in the house on a ministry’s behalf when the minister is busy or absent, and helps to steer its business. For a new member aged thirty-two it was a useful apprenticeship in one of the most technical ministries.

He held the post until the government fell in April 2022, when he resigned from the assembly along with the rest of the PTI’s members.

2022: a by-election with a story

Three months later he was a candidate again, this time for the Punjab Assembly.

A group of PTI members of that assembly had voted against their party in the election of a Chief Minister. The Election Commission unseated them. By-elections were held on 17 July 2022 in twenty constituencies. They became a referendum on Imran Khan’s removal.

He stood in PP-217 Multan-VII. The unseated member was the same independent who had defeated his father in 2018, later a member of the PTI and then a defector from it.

He won. The PTI took fifteen of the twenty seats that day, a result that shook the new government and restored the party’s hold on Punjab for a time.

He took the oath on 21 July 2022 and sat in the provincial assembly until it was dissolved in January 2023.

2023: his father’s arrest

After the unrest of 9 May 2023 the state moved against the PTI’s leadership. His father was detained, released and then, on 20 August 2023, arrested in the case about a secret diplomatic cable. He has been in custody ever since, though he has been acquitted in several cases.

For the son this meant:

• visiting courts and jails;
• speaking to the press about his father’s health and treatment;
• holding together the family’s supporters in Multan;
• and deciding whether to stay in a party whose leaders were being picked off one by one.

He stayed.

2024: winning without a symbol

For the election of 8 February 2024 the PTI had lost its election symbol. Its candidates stood as independents, each with a different symbol.

His father could not contest. So the family’s seats were fought by the children.

• Zain Qureshi stood in NA-150 Multan-III, his father’s old seat. He won with 126,775 votes, defeating the PML-N’s candidate.
• His sister stood in a neighbouring seat against a son of the Gillani family and lost.

He took the oath on 29 February 2024. The assembly’s website lists him as an independent for the reason given above.

In the new house the PTI’s members sat under the banner of a small allied party. He was named a deputy parliamentary leader of that group, a sign of his standing among the party’s younger members.

October 2024: the missed vote

That position lasted eight months.

What happened

In October 2024 the government brought the 26th Constitutional Amendment, which changed how senior judges are chosen. It needed two-thirds of each house. The PTI opposed it and instructed its members to stay united.

On the night of the vote he was not in the house.

Two readings

One reading is that he was put under pressure to stay away, as his party’s own leader in the house said of him and others that night. Members of the opposition had complained for weeks that they and their families were being threatened or offered inducements. With his father in prison, he was more exposed than most.

The other reading, voiced by angrier party supporters, is that members who went missing let the party down at the decisive moment, whatever their reasons.

He did not vote for the amendment. He was absent. And he remained a member of the party.

Protests, custody and a warrant

The months that followed brought more trouble.

• In late November 2024, as the PTI’s convoys set out for a protest in Islamabad, a television channel reported, citing unnamed sources, that he and another Multan member had been taken into custody in the city.
• An anti-terrorism court later issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for him in a case about a PTI rally on the edge of Islamabad. The report seen for this article appears to date from October 2025.
• At some point he was reported to have been stopped at Lahore airport from leaving the country.

No report about him from 2026 was found for this article. The outcome of the protest case is not known.

Multan’s political map

To judge his prospects, look at the ground he stands on.

Multan is unusual in Punjab because the PPP is still strong there, thanks to the Gillani family. So the PTI’s candidates face two established rivals, not one. That he won comfortably in 2024, without a symbol and with his father in jail, says something about both the family’s following and the party’s.

What supporters and critics say

Supporters say he has shown steadiness beyond his years. He did not leave the party when leaving would have eased the pressure on his father. He won his seat against the odds. They regard his absence in October 2024 as the act of a man whose family was being held hostage, and they note that he gave up his post at once and submitted to the party’s inquiry.

Critics make other points. Some PTI supporters have not forgiven the missed vote. Opponents say he is in Parliament only because of his surname and the shrine. And those who dislike dynastic politics point out that the PTI, which once campaigned against family rule, gave a father and son seats in the same house.

Each view has merit. He inherited his seat. He has also had to keep it in conditions his father never faced at his age.

Words used in this article

Timeline: Zain Qureshi at a glance

Why his story matters

• It shows how political houses pass on. A grandfather, a father and a son have each held high office from the same city.
• It shows the pressure on members’ families. A member whose father is in prison is not a free agent, whatever he may wish.
• It shows the PTI’s strength in 2024. Even the son of a jailed leader, without a symbol, won by a wide margin.

For more on his family, see our profile of his father, and read our explainer on the National Assembly and our plain-English guide to Pakistan’s politics.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• National Assembly of Pakistan, member profile: Makhdoom Zain Hussain Qureshi — read on 8 October 2026.
• Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, member profile (2018 to 2023): Makhdoom Zain Hussain Qureshi — read on 8 October 2026; date of birth, degrees and by-election.
• Wikipedia, “Zain Qureshi” — as last edited on 4 June 2026; wrong on his 2018 post and his provincial seat.
• Geo News, “PTI’s Zain Qureshi resigns as deputy parliamentary leader to ensure fair loyalty probe” — October 2024.
• Pakistan Today, “PTI leader clarifies Zain Qureshi’s notice is not an expulsion” — 27 October 2024.
• Associated Press of Pakistan, “ATC issues arrest warrants against Zain Qureshi” — year not shown; probably October 2025.
• ARY News, reports tagged “Zain Qureshi” — including the July 2022 by-election result and the November 2024 custody report.