LAHORE Firebrand speaker and preacher of Tahfuz-e-Khatme Nabuvat and protection of blasphemy law, Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi breathed his last in Sheikh Zayed Hospital of provincial metropolis on Thursday evening.
He was 54 year old as he was born in Pindigheb area of Attock District, Punjab on June 22, 1966.
The TLP leader had been suffering from fever for the past few days. After Rizvi s health deteriorated, he was taken to Sheikh Zayed Hospital.
According to hospital sources, he had expired before arriving at the hospital for treatment. His body has been taken to his residence at Grand Battery Stop at Multan Road where a large amount of TLP workers have gathered.
The TLP chief was a consequential figure in the political landscape of Pakistan for the past three to four years. His party held a major sit-in in 2017 against the PML-N government. Subsequently, in the 2018 general elections, he obtained 2.2 million votes and TLP emerged as the country’s fifth largest party.
The 54-year-old preacher was a former Pakistan government employee and hails from Attock district. For his early education, he studied Hifz and Tajweed from a madressah in Jhelum and later on studied from the Jamia Nizamia Rizvia in Lahore.
He was the founder of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, a religious political organization founded in 2015 which is known to protest against any change to Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
Rizvi had memorised the holy Quran and was an ardent follower of the Islamic theologian Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, who was born in Bareilly in undivided India in the 19th century and founded the Barelvi school of thought.
Khadim Hussain took up the name Rizvi as a tribute to Ahmed Raza Khan.
As the government appointed Imam of the Pir Makki Mosque in Lahore, Khadim Rizvi earned a reputation as a firebrand speaker and charismatic leader among his followers. He has a penchant for the poetry of Allama Iqbal, and his sermons are
replete with Persian couplets written by the great poet.
