Bangladesh yesterday moved to regulate weekly sermons in hundreds of thousands of mosques as part of a stepped-up campaign to combat radical Islam, officials said.
The move comes after the deadly attack in an upscale Dhaka cafe in which 20 hostages were brutally shot and hacked to death in the nation’s worst attack by suspected Muslim militants.
Since then, authorities have shut down a TV channel run by a controversial Indian preacher and decided to monitor the social media and Friday sermons of local mosques in a bid to prevent radicalization.
As part of the drive, the state-run Islamic Foundation, which works as a watchdog for mosques and religious establishments, had prepared a sermon for the main national mosque that it has asked other mosques to follow.
The sermon, which was published by the agency ahead of yesterday’s prayers, invokes Koranic verses and traditions of the Prophet Mohammed to rail against murderous extremism.
“Whoever kills a person unjustly, it is as though he has killed all mankind,” it said, citing a verse of the Koran.
It also quoted the prophet as saying the killing of a human being is the biggest sin and urged parents to take good care of their children so they cannot be “brainwashed.”
It was not clear how many of Bangladesh’s mosques, which are run by independent neighborhood lay committees, would follow the instructions.
However, a senior police official said that local administrations, police and Islamic Foundation officials at the regional level would “monitor” the sermons.
Foundation chief Shamim Mohammad Afzal said the sermon had been distributed to more than 300,000 mosques.
“It is not mandatory, but we hope the imams will follow our sermon or take their inspiration from it,” he said.
“Our core message is there is no place for terrorism in Islam. We want to make sure our children cannot be brainwashed to commit an act of terrorism,” he said.
Islamic parties, who have strongly denounced the cafe siege and a string of other recent attacks on minorities, have criticized the sermon regulation as “undesirable.”
“Long before the foundation issued its instructions, our clerics have been vocal against terrorism,” said Mufti Faiz Ullah, secretary-general of Islamic Oikya Jote, a faith-based party.
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