Kausar Niazi (), born as Muhammad Hayyat Khan and commonly known as Maulana Kausar Niazi (21 April 1934 – 19 March 1994), was a Pakistani politician and a religious leader in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Niazi, in Bhutto's premiership cabinet, was a most powerful federal minister in Pakistan during 1974 till 1977. Niazi was one of the close aids and trusted confidents of Bhutto who remained loyal to Bhutto until his death. He was born in Musakhel, Punjab, Pakistan. His father Fateh Khan Niazi Luqi-khel and uncle Muzaffar Khan Niazi Luqi-khel were among the leading persons of the area. He was a religious scholar and orator, who made a name for himself in politics, and was a member of Bhutto's Federal Cabinet. He served as a minister and assisted Bhutto for 6 years. He was also a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Career Kausar Niazi was an active member of one of Pakistan's leading religious parties, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) in the 1950s and in the 1960s. In 1953, he was arrested and jailed by the Pakistani government for taking part in the violent anti-Ahamdiyya riots in Lahore. Niazi was also highly vocal in his support for JI's criticism of General Ayub Khan's dictatorship from 1958 to 1969. The JI had accused Ayub of damaging the role of Islamic scholars in Pakistan. However, after Ayub Khan replaced his young foreign minister, Z. A. Bhutto in 1966, Niazi supported Bhutto's rebellious stand against Ayub Khan over the 1965 ceasefire against India. When Bhutto formed his own party in 1967 – Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the JI Party condemned Bhutto and his party of being a party of communists who were being backed by the Soviet Union to destroy the Islamic religion in Pakistan. After disagreeing with Jamaat-e-Islami stand against Bhutto, Niazi broke away from the party. He was then asked by Bhutto to join the PPP. Bhutto was looking for an Islamic religious scholar to join his party. Bhutto was looking for someone with some religious knowledge who could blunt the JI attacks against the PPP. PPP's leftist ideologues did not want Kausar Niazi coming into the PPP. But Bhutto intervened and overruled their concerns, suggesting that Kausar Niazi fully supported the party's socialist programme. Kausar Niazi contested the Pakistani general election, 1970 from a constituency in Sialkot area even though he was originally from the Mianwali District.