Muhammad Shafee Okarvi

Muhammad Shafee Okarvi (2 February 1930 – 24 April 1984) was a Pakistani religious scholar and orator, one of the founders of Jamaat Ahle Sunnat Pakistan and its first chairman.¹ The Urdu article calls him a distinguished scholar of Ahl-e-Sunnat wa Jama'at, and the Arabic article records his title "reviver of the maslak of Ahl al-Sunna".²³ Over 38 years he delivered more than 18,000 speeches.¹

He was born at Khem Karan in East Punjab, the eldest son of Haji Shaykh Karam Ilahi, a local businessman; the English and Arabic articles and Wikidata give 2 February 1930, while the Urdu article states the year 1929 alongside a Hijri pairing, 2 Ramadan 1348 AH, that converts to 2 February 1930.¹²⁴ In 1947 he migrated to Okara, where he and his father built Masjid Ghausiyah, and in 1954 he was among the founders and sponsors of the Jamia Hanafiyya Ashraf-ul-Madaris on Grand Trunk Road.¹

The Urdu article's section on his bay'ah and devotion names his pir and murshid as Mian Ghulamullah Sharqpuri, of the Naqshbandiyya Mujaddidiyya line of Mian Sher Muhammad Sharqpuri, and states that he held ijaza and khilafa from numerous shaykhs in all the tariqa silsilas, with murids in the thousands across the world.² The Arabic article likewise states that he gained thousands of murids throughout the world.³

From 1956 he was lecturer and imam of Memon Masjid in Karachi and founded Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, becoming its first chairman; he preached across the Far East, the Middle East, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Mauritius, and established the Anjuman Ahl-e-Sunnat wa Jama'at in South Africa in 1976.¹ In Karachi he started the ten-day Muharram gatherings and the Mawlid processions in the name of Ahl-e-Sunnat wa Jama'at.² He was elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan in 1977, survived an assassination attempt in Karachi in 1962, and was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz posthumously in 1985.¹

After a third heart attack he died at Karachi on 24 April 1984, aged 54, and was buried in Karachi.¹³

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