Tawqir Raza Khan (Urdu: توقیر رضا خان, romanized: Tawqīr Raẓā Khān) is an Indian Islamic scholar and politician who is the founder of the Ittehad-e-Millat Council, a political party based in Uttar Pradesh.
Khan was elevated to the post of the Vice Chairman of his state's handloom department but resigned following the Muzaffarnagar riots.
In May 2013 Raza Khan was appointed as the vice chairman of the Handloom Corporation on the condition that the Samajwadi Party would reconsider their candidates fielded in Moradabad and Bareilly for the 2014 Indian general election.
He also demanded that a committee be created to investigate the causes of the communal riots that took place in the state during the tenure of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
[8]In November 2013, Raza Khan was visited by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who said that the man next to him was a "respectable person in the town".
[10]In May 2016 Raza Khan visited Deoband, the city from which a rival sect Deobandi originated, to meet the family of a boy who had been arrested on accusations of being involved in terrorism.
[12] The Times of India wrote that Raza Khan's visit to Deoband "stirred a sectarian storm" among the religious scholars of the Barelvi sect.
In March 2016 an International Sufi Conference was held in Delhi which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
[14] Raza Khan criticised the event, claiming that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (a Hindu right-wing organization) was creating sectarian conflict among the Muslims with this conference.
He also said:The history is witness of the fact that a Sufi never went to the doors of rich, its first time that in name of Sufism privileges are being availed from Prime Minister and the RSS.
In 2007 Raza Khan had announced a reward of Rs5 lakh on the author's head if the Indian government did not restrict her entry to India.
[21] According to a report, Khan had said, "the only way a fatwa against Taslima Nasreen, whose writings clerics denounced as anti-Islam, could be withdrawn was if she burnt her books and left India.
In a joint statement, the Muslim Students Organisation and the Barkati Educational Trust said that he was arrested on the basis of a fake complaint and claimed that, if he was not released, the city might not return to normalcy.
The Court mentioned that the inflammatory speech of Tawqir Raza incited a Muslim mob that vandalized properties and religious places of other communities.
[25][26] In a program for religious unity held in Bareilly, Raza Khan claimed that Hindu women had five husbands and that they did not know who the father of their children was.
He made these comments in response to the debate of implementing a uniform civil code in the country and banning the Islamic instant divorce.