More than 1,800 Pakistani Muslim clerics have issued an Islamic directive, or fatwa, forbidding suicide bombings, in a book unveiled by the government yesterday.
The nation has been plagued for years by violence by Muslim militants, who often use suicide bombers and preach that their struggle is a holy war to impose Islamic rule.
Suicide attacks are frequently condemned as fanatical and immoral, especially when civilians are killed, but insurgents view the tactic as their most effective weapon.
Seeking to curb “terrorism” that has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties since the early 2000s, the clerics declared suicide bombings to be forbidden, or haraam.
“This fatwa provides a strong base for the stability of a moderate Islamic society,” Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain wrote in the book, prepared by the state-run International Islamic University and released at an official ceremony.
“We can seek guidance from this fatwa for building a national narrative in order to curb extremism, in keeping with the golden principles of Islam,” he said.
Foreign and domestic critics of Pakistan’s government and military accuse them of cozying up to radical groups for political and military purposes and say the state has turned a blind eye to hate preachers in mosques for too long.
The fatwa was ratified by a number of prominent clerics who are outspoken critics of liberalism and the West, and are seen as controversial for preaching sectarianism or supporting the Afghan Taliban.
One of the clerics who signed, Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, is the face of a banned sectarian Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat (ASWJ), and has been placed on a Pakistani legislative list of individuals with suspected links to “terrorism.”
However, the ASWJ figurehead, Aurangzeb Farooqi, attended the signing ceremony.
Another signatory, Hamid-ul-Haq, is the son of a cleric widely regarded as the “Father of the Afghan Taliban” after many prominent militants, including Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed Omar, were found to have graduated from his seminary in Peshawar.
In related news, a radical anti-US cleric imprisoned since 2009 left a jail in Peshawar following a court order for his release on health grounds earlier this month, his lawyer and prison authorities said yesterday.
Sufi Mohammad, 93, is the former chief of the banned pro-Taliban group the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Sharia Mohammed (TNSM). He became widely known after he went to Afghanistan with thousands of other armed volunteers to help the Taliban fight against Americans following the 2001 US-led invasion. He was captured upon his return to Pakistan.
Mohammad is also father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.
Mohammad’s lawyer, Fida Gul, said the ailing cleric was released on Monday night, after which his family took him to hospital.
Additional reporting by AP
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