Zaffar was born as an orphan, and raised by his uncle Hafiz Mian Muhammad Yunus, a local Sufi saint whose tomb is now a shrine in the village.

Zaffar left the government teaching job and joined Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the early 1970s.

[citation needed] Zaffar was a supporter of Bhuttos[10] and he almost spent 30 months in jail for opposition to Zia ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf regimes.

[14] He remained as president of Pakistan peoples party AJK and was member of central executive committee[12][15][16] He accompanied Benazir Bhutto to rallies and election campaigns.

[16][19] During many up and downs Ishaq Zaffar remained steadfast to Pakistan Peoples Party.From 1996 to 2001, he was senior minister in Barrister Sultan Mahmood's led PP government.

[36] After his death, Zaffar's eldest son Ashfaq continued the family's political career by contesting election on his vacant seat.

Though a member of Azad Kashmir's majority Gujjar community,[42][43] Zaffar was respected for his neutrality and meritocracy[7][43] and there were no allegations of corruption against him over his four-decade political career.