Uniting theme: Wahhabis, Barelvis on same page on curricula

Sunni Ittehad Council, Jamatud Dawa to fight to keep jihad verses.

LAHORE:

Leaders of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and the Jamatud Dawa (JD), who rarely agree on anything, have both vowed to resist any attempt to exclude Quranic verses concerning jihad from the school curricula.

In separate statements issued on Sunday, the Barelvi SIC and Wahhabi JD said that the government was trying to alter the curriculum on the directions of the United States and other Western powers.

“The government is conspiring against jihad. We will not allow this,” said a statement from SIC leaders Sahibzada Fazle Karim, Haji Hanif Tayyab, Pir Muhammad Afzal Qadri, Sarwat Ijaz Qadri, Pir Syed Mahfooz Mashhadi, Pir Syed Safdar Shah Gilani and others.

“The government is trying to appease its foreign masters. Former president Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf also tried to exclude jihadi verses from the curriculum, but we did not let it happen.”

Jamatud Dawa leaders including Professor Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Maulana Ameer Hamza, Hafiz Talha Saeed, Hafiz Abdul Ghafar Ropri and Hafiz Khalid Waleed said that the government was trying to convert Pakistan into a secular state.

“Pakistan’s rulers want to exclude verses and hadith on jihad in exchange for dollars from the West.

Pakistan is an ideological state founded in the name of Islam and the Jamatud Dawa will not allow non-Muslims to carry out such agenda here,” they said.

They demanded that religious parties and seminaries unite to put pressure on the government not to try to change the curriculum.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2011.