Qazi Mazhar Qayyum

Qazi Mazhar Qayyum 'Raees-Azam Naushera', is a Pakistani politician. He came from a qadi's family that had been prominent among the landed aristocracy of the Soon Valley since the 16th century.

He was the son of a renowned academic. Sufi was considered Sajjada Nashin (hereditary administrator) by the people of his area. In the Punjab, the Sajjada Nashin or Pir families were not as land-rich as the great Punjabi lords, but they exerted great political and religious influence over the people. The British could not administer the area without their help and no political party could win the election without their help.

"Sajjada nashins", David Gilmartin asserts, "claimed to be the descendants of the Sufi, 'saints,' intermediaries between the Faithful and their God, and this cut against the grain of Islamic orthodoxy...in kind, of their special religious status, these Sajjada Nashins had become men of local standing in their own right." However he never claimed to be a Sajjada Nashin or Pir, since his father, Qazi Mian Muhammad Amjad, forbade his descendants to establish Dargah, and his will specified that he be buried in an ordinary grave; he made every effort to stop the people from making Dargah of the grave of his father. Instead, much to the horror of his tribe, he considered this as superstition.

The rural Muslim elite supported Punjab Muslim League during the 1947 Punjab Provincial Assembly Election. Without its victory in Punjab in that election, in the words of Ian Talbot, "the Muslim League would not have gotten Pakistan."

He supported the Unionist Muslim League for the political interest of his Awan (Pakistan) tribe, and used his political and social influence to help the people of his area. After 1937, he began to support the imperialist. Cambridge historians, Marxist and nationalist historians of India and even the nationalist historians of Pakistan are of the opinion that Jinnah and Punjab Muslim League at first mobilised the strong support of the urban elite, rural landed aristocracy, Pirs and Sajjada-Nashins who subsequently won over the Muslims of Punjab for the cause of the Muslim League and Pakistan.

After 1923, when the Unionist Party was formed by Sir Fazl-e-Hussain, he supported the Unionist Muslim League. He believed, like other leaders of the party, that economic liberation must precede political liberation. The party won all the elections between 1923 and 1937. During this time, when the Unionists formed governments in Punjab, constructive work was done towards debt relief and irrigation systems, which were critical for the region.

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