Dr Muhammd Farooq Khan

Background
Dr Khan was born in a village in Swabi district of KP. He got his early education from his hometown and then enrolled in Cadet College in Hasanabdal, district of Punjab province and later on the Cadet College, Kohat. After having acquired the degree in medicine, he decided to specialize in psychiatry. Dr Farooq did his specialization in psychiatry from Austria. On his return he established his private practice in Sheikh Maltoon Town in Mardan city Where he was treating patient with psychiatric ailment.

In 1986, he moved from Swabi to Mardan to start his clinic along with his wife, Dr Ridwana, who was a gynecologist. He had previously served in the government as a doctor. Dr Khan was known as a writer, columnist, religious scholar and Vice-Chancellor of the Islamic University in Swat. The government appointed Dr Khan as the first VC of Swat Islamic University after it decided to establish a higher educational institution in Iman Dherai, which was previously TTP headquarter. The Swat University established to replace the Madassa which had previously served as the head quarter of TTP. This Madrassa previously was owned by Maulana Fazlullah. Dr Khan was reported to have also curriculum for the University.

He wrote many books to educate the clear manifestations of Islam and to eradicate the misconceptions from the Pakistani society. He also wrote a Tafseer of the holy Quran and frequently delivered lectures against terrorism. He spoke out fearlessly against militancy and suicide bombings and in the process earned many enemies. Dr Farooq wrote a book that says “Not Jihad but Qital” (Murder), where he termed the Current Killing of Innocent People in Afghanistan, Pakistan or USA like 9/11 as murder and not Jihad. Some of his works include “Pakistan and the Twenty First Century (Urdu)”, “The Struggle for Islamic Revolution”, and “What is Islam”. He loudly talked about the music and dogs and declared they are not Haram to keep in the house. As some religious Ulemma say this is Haram to keep this kind of thing in the Muslims house. His outspokenness in many issues related to religious and politics made him a dear media personality in the period of last decade.

In order to help people to attain good life according to instructions of Quran and Sunnah he engaged himself in different kinds of projects related to media. He frequently took part in television talk shows in which he used to criticize Taliban and termed suicide attacks as un-Islamic. Before his assassination he was running a rehabilitation project named Sabawoon to de-radicalize and rehabilitate the young suicide bombers detained during the military operations code named Rah-e-Rast in Swat in May 2009. At least 175 suicide bombers were trained by Taliban; he was having a centre catered for them to educate them about the true values of Islam.

Regarding his political career, Dr Muhammad Farooq served as a Shura member of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) for some time, and contested the National Assembly elections as a candidate of the Jamaat Islamic Front (a political alliance led by JI ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed) in 1993. He was jailed countless time as student leader of Jamiat Tulab-e-Islam ( a student wing of JI). He parted ways from JI saying its politics is not beneficial to Islam and it propagation. As a writer he wrote more than nine books on different issues including politics, Islam and the concept of Jihad. He also remained a member of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) for some time and held an important position in the party. Subsequently, he stayed away from politics and focused on his literary work.

Dr Farooq was as a blatant critic of Taliban ideology and rejected suicide attacks as un-Islamic at a time when various leaders of the religious parties and religious scholars were hesitant of speaking against un-Islamic practices of Taliban. To carry out his mission he wrote dozens of books. During the past few years, he had been doing religious programmes on the PTV and other private channels in his bid to spread the light of education in order to enlighten people with the true values of religion. He was assassinated on 2 October 2010 while present in his clinic in Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP).