Maulana Sami ul Haq, founder of Muttahida Majlis Amal, Difah Pakistan Council and god father of the Taliban of Afghanistan breathed his last in the most unusual of circumstances; stabbed to death by knives by a bunch of assassins who were just waiting to hit him as soon he was alone at his home in Islamabad.
Born in 1937 to Maulana Abdul Haq in Akora Khattak, it was his father seminary in KPK which decreed the Taliban in droves to take over the affairs of state in Afghanistan from the warring Afghan Mujahideen who were in control of Kabul after the formal ouster of Leftist Pro Soviet government there. That fatherly image for Taliban made him a prime resource for anyone wishing or seeking peace in that war-torn country.
In other avenues if the sectarian radicals in Pakistan cited his father Fatwa prohibiting social interaction with adherents of the major branch of Islam, he was a regular invitee to the international clergy conference, an annual event in Tehran, Iran where he rubbed shoulders with people like late Burhan Uddin Rabbani, a Mujahideen leader of Tajik descent. A search in Google would return many a clips and pictures of him shaking hands with the supreme leader of Iran; Ali Khamenei, a spectacle not so easy for radicals on either side to fathom!
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It was his ease with diverse audiences as well as a geo political profile which placed him apart from his political comrades like Maulana Fazl ur Rehman. Spending a somewhat obscure life in the Pakistani political scene where he was not so sought after in compared to Maulana Fazl, he took minimum security detail with himself, in the process enjoying a somewhat relaxed posture like any common Pakistani. However, it was that relaxed posture which became an undoing.
While his party lost a leader; no doubt, his sudden exit from the scene at a juncture in the national history and polity where the political polarization is at its peak, his exit while on one hand is no doubt a loss for the nation; on the other hand, has the potential to make things even more difficult for the country itself to steer its way safely towards stability.
It goes without saying that political maturity is the key to stability in the country. In the international scene; Afghans have lost a friend and Iranians a friend from a diverse background with whom they can talk with without any hestitation.
