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Thursday, October 16, 2008

No mention to reverse the brainwash in this fatwa

This Daily Times editorial skips a mention of how long will it take to reverse the brainwash. t

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A powerful group of clerics has gathered in Lahore and issued a fatwa against a freewheeling concept of jihad and the use of suicide-bombing in Pakistan. As if in exchange, it has also asked the government to stop military operations in the Tribal Areas and conduct “negotiations” with the terrorists there to end the state of militancy that has laid Pakistan low. The Mutahidda Ulema Council statement has asserted that “only the state has the authority to call for jihad (holy war), and individuals or groups are not authorised to do that”.

The conference that issued the statement was attended by all the important schools of clerical thought in the country: Jama’at Ahle Sunnat (Barelvi), Ahle Tashayyo (Shia), Ahle-Hadith, Jama’at-e Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (Deobandi), and the banned Sipah-e Sahaba (Deobandi). Therefore, on the face of it at least, the factions that endorsed the Council call comprised all the jurisprudential brands of Islam known in Pakistan. Also present were “renamed” versions of the banned militias known for their past jihadi activities.

The venue was Jamia Naeemia, known for its extremely stringent verdicts on the religious backslidings of the state, presided over by its firebrand leader Maulana Sarfaraz Naeemi. This was meant to show that the fatwa was not being issued by “moderate ulema” who are no longer in vogue in Pakistan but a Deobandi-Ahle Hadith consensus that was not known in the past to issue such religious verdicts. In fact, when in 2005 a group of moderate ulema led by Mufti Munibur Rehman issued a fatwa against suicide-bombing, the group was condemned and also threatened by other radical ulema and their militant followers.

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