"Agencies are playing a dangerous game"?: JUI - F MNA

Clerics worried by lack of respect for fatwas on suicide
* JUI-F meeting frustrated at failure to prevent Charsadda attack
By Zakir Hassnain: Daily Times, May 7, 2007

PESHAWAR: Clerics who issued a fatwa a few weeks ago declaring suicide attacks ‘haraam’ and illegal, are concerned at the fact that even fatwas have failed to stop such attacks by jihadi elements.

These religious scholars are of the view that the existing volatile situation has gotten out of control and has reached a point where even religious decrees cannot prevent such elements from their actions.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) NWFP organised a clerics convention on April 17 to protect religious madrassas and tell its activists that problems could be resolved only through peaceful means and not through military ones.

The convention also issued a fatwa that said suicide bombing was haraam in Islam and against the law of the land. Over 2,000 clerics from various parts of the country endorsed it and some of it’s signatories were Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Maulana Saleemullah Khan, Maulana Muhammad Hanif Jalandhri, Maulana Muhammad Hassan Jan, Maulana Dr Abdul Razaaq Sikandar, Maulana Qazi Hameedullah, Maulana Dr Muhammad Adil Khan, Maulana Dr Sher Ali Khan, Maulana Mufti Ghulamur Rehman and Maulana Muhammad Ullah Jan.

However, the Charsadda suicide bomb attack seems to indicate that the clerics’ decree carried no weight and was ignored. “These are cruel and ignorant people.

They have no knowledge and education and don’t even listen to religious scholars,” Sheikhul Hadith Maulana Hassan Jan, one of the fatwa signatories and head of Jamia Imdadul Uloom Al Islamia Darwaish Masjid Peshawar, told Daily Times.

Jan condemned the Charsadda attack and said suicide bombing was haraam and against the Sharia. “We still stand by our fatwa,” he said, adding that stopping illiterate elements from suicide attacks was beyond the control of clerics. “We cannot force them [jihadi elements] to act upon our fatwas,” said the maulana and added the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq was different from our country. “We are completely against suicide activities in our country,” he said.

Qari Fayyazur Rehman Alvi, JUI-F National Assembly member and the party’s central deputy general secretary, said sometimes matters went beyond fatwas and they just did not work anymore. He said it was now pointless to issue more decrees as the entire system had collapsed. “Fatwas don’t work in troubled regions. The situation has progressed beyond them,” he added.

The JUI-F’s religious scholar said the clerics’ convention had served to denounce to everyone, including madrassas, that suicide bombing was against the Sharia and law. “We are satisfied with our madrassas. They will not reject our fatwas,” he said.

Alvi said numerous jihadi organisations and people were terrorising the country and some of them had the support of the agencies. “The agencies are playing a dangerous game in the country,” he said.