He had four brothers, including Anwarul Haq Haqqani, responsible of the seminary’s administration, and Mehmood Ul Haq Haqqani, who was professor of chemistry at the Peshawar University and who also served as Pakistan’s deputy ambassador to Saudi Arabia, while he himself married twice and had nine children.[10]
He had also served as a member of the Senate of Pakistan.[16][17] He formed Muttahida Deeni Mahaz (United Religious Front), an alliance of relatively small religio-political parties, to participate in the 2013 general election.[18][19]
Haq stated that the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard G. Olson,
visited him in July 2013 to discuss the situation of the region.[3] Haq sympathized with the Taliban, stating: "Give them just one year and they will make the whole of Afghanistan happy... The whole of Afghanistan will be with them ... Once the Americans leave, all of this will happen within a year... As long as they are there, Afghans will have to fight for their freedom," Haq said. "It's a war for freedom. It will not stop until outsiders leave."[3]
In October 2018, an Afghan delegation comprising Ashraf Ghani government representatives and diplomats stationed in Pakistan, met Samiul Haq asking him to play a role in restoring peace in Afghanistan by bringing the Afghan Taliban back to the dialogue table.[20]
Fatwa on polio vaccination
After Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan initiated a campaign against polio immunisation, forcing hundreds of thousands of children to miss vaccinations, on 9 December 2013 Maulana Sami ul Haq issued a fatwa in favour of polio vaccination.[21][22] The fatwa said "vaccination against deadly diseases is helpful in their prevention according to research conducted by renowned medical specialists. It adds that the vaccines used against these diseases are in no way harmful".[23]
Death
On 2 November 2018, Sami-ul-Haq was stabbed multiple times at around 7:00 pm PST at his residence in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi.[24][25] He was taken to the nearby Safari Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The cause of his death was excessive blood loss due to the multiple stabbing across his body, including his face.[26] According to his guard, he had intended to join the protests against the acquittal of Asia Bibi in Islamabad, but he could not join it due to road blockage.[27]
Following the assassination, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government declared a day of mourning.[28] Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the murder saying "the country has suffered a great loss".[29]
On 3 November 2018, he was buried in the premises of Darul Uloom Haqqania in his hometown of Akora Khattak in the afternoon. The funeral prayer was offered at the Khushal Khan Degree College and led by his son Hamid Ul Haq Haqqani.[28] It was attended by a large number of political leaders and his followers. As part of the investigation into his murder, the police questioned his domestic staff.[30]
Books
The editor-in-chief of the monthly journal Al-Haq until his death, he has been described as "a prolific Islamist writer" who "authored more than 20 books",[31] some of his works including :[32]
Islām Aur ʻAṣr-i Hāz̤ir, 1976. On Islam and the modern world, collected articles.
Qādiyān Sey Isrāʼīl Tak, 1978. Critical assessment of the Ahmadiyya movement.
Kārvān-i Āk̲h̲irat, 1990. Collection of condolence letters on the death of various South Asian religious scholars.
Ṣalibī Dahshatgardī Aur ʻĀlam-i Islām, 2004. Collection of interviews discussing Taliban movement, United States of America and West interests in Afghanistan.
Qādiyānī Fitnah Aur Millat-i Islāmiyah Kā Mauʼqqif , 2011. Criticism of the Ahmadiyya movement, co-authored with Muhammad Taqi Usmani.
K̲h̲ut̤bāt-i Mashāhīr, 2015. Collected sermons on religious life in Islam, Islam and conduct of life and Islam and politics, in 10 volumes.
Afghan Taliban: War of Ideology : Struggle for Peace, 2015. His last notable book, on the peace process in Afghanistan.
^ abcde"Pakistani 'Father of Taliban' keeps watch over loyal disciples". Maria Golovnina and Sheree Sardar. Reuters News Agency website. 15 September 2013. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2018. ... Haq said, alternating between Pakistan's official Urdu and his native Pashto language. Haq, who speaks fluent Arabic, ...
^Westhead, Rick (13 May 2009). "Inside Pakistan's Jihad U". The Toronto Star. In 1997, Sami ul-Haq received a phone call from Omar, the Taliban leader. The Taliban had been defeated in an attempt to capture Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan and Omar needed reinforcements. "Mullah Omar personally rang me to request that I let these students go to Afghanistan on leave since they are needed there," ul-Haq was quoted as saying in Pakistan journalist Ahmed Rashid's book, Taliban. Ul-Haq agreed to help Omar and briefly shut down his school to help his students arrange passage through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.
^Westhead, Rick (13 May 2009). "Inside Pakistan's Jihad U". The Toronto Star. "This is not a (terrorist) training centre," says Rashid ul-Haq. His grandfather established the madrassa in 1947 and his father, Sami ul-Haq, was a Pakistani senator for 18 years and is one of Haqqani's directors.
^Westhead, Rick (13 May 2009). "Inside Pakistan's Jihad U". The Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 4 November 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018. In 1997, Sami ul-Haq received a phone call from Omar, the Taliban leader. The Taliban had been defeated in an attempt to capture Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan and Omar needed reinforcements. "Mullah Omar personally rang me to request that I let these students go to Afghanistan on leave since they are needed there," ul-Haq was quoted as saying in Pakistan journalist Ahmed Rashid's book, Taliban. Ul-Haq agreed to help Omar and briefly shut down his school to help his students arrange passage through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.
^Dalrymple, William. "Inside the Madrasas". The New York Review of Books. Here, straddling the noisy, truck-thundering Islamabad highway, stands the Haqqania, one of the most radical of the religious schools called madrasas. Many of the Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, were trained at this institution.
^"Five DPC parties plan new electoral alliance". Dawn. 6 December 2012. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018. Maulana Sami was also among the founders of a six-party religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis Amal ahead of 2002 polls that later ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan under Musharraf regime.
^Wasim, Amir (20 April 2013). "Few election alliances this time". Dawn. Archived from the original on 4 November 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018. The Muttahida Deeni Mahaz (MDM), a group of five small religious parties and groups headed by Maulana Samiul Haq of the Jamiat-Ulema-i-Islam-Sami (JUI-S), is the only electoral alliance that is fielding its candidates in the May 11 elections.
