Rehman Chishti

Rehman Chishti is a British Conservative politician and barrister, born in Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, on 4 October 1978, who was MP for Gillingham and Rainham from 2010 to 2024. ^{1 2}

Chishti was born in Muzaffarabad; his father Abdul Rehman Chishti, a former federal adviser on religious affairs in Azad Kashmir, left for a post as an imam in the United Kingdom in 1978, and Rehman joined him in Gillingham in 1984, aged six, after six years apart. ¹ He studied law at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and the Inns of Court School of Law, and was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 2001, prosecuting and defending in the magistrates' and Crown courts. ¹ In his own writing for the UK Parliament he describes his faith as central to his life: "my faith has always been an important part of my life", and records that "I took the oath of allegiance on the Quran". ³ He married Alessandra in an Islamic ceremony in July 2024. ¹

Chishti served as a political adviser to Benazir Bhutto from 1999 to 2007, sat on Medway Council from 2003, and was elected MP for Gillingham and Rainham in 2010. ¹ In 2015 he led the cross-party campaign that persuaded the government and the BBC to call the Islamic State group "Daesh". ¹ He was Vice Chair of the Conservative Party for Communities in 2018 and the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief from September 2019, resigning on 14 September 2020 in protest at the Internal Market Bill. ^{1 3} In July 2022 he briefly served as a Foreign Office minister and stood in the Conservative leadership election, and he left Parliament at the 2024 election. ¹

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