War of words: Stop linking religion with terrorism: Fazl

Says govt is not abiding by its agreements with seminaries

LAHORE:

Top Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Thursday insisted that seminaries and mosques were not in any way linked with terrorism.

Speaking at a seminar at Aiwan-e-Iqbal, the JUI chief said the administration of seminaries and mosques are abiding by the agreements but the government is violating them. “If the government continues its action, we will close down seminaries and will court mass arrest,” he said.

Maulana Fazl said the whole nation was united following the school massacre in Peshawar but the ruling PML-N divided it through the 21st constitutional amendment.

The JUI-F chief mentioned that he was ready to talk with the government over the amendment but the government should first redress his party’s reservations over this amendment.



He affirmed that on behalf of Islam, he was talking to every sect and they would wage war, adding that there is no personal benefit in it but they want to unite the whole nation on this issue.

Blaming the incumbent government, Maulana Fazl pointed out that the government is violating the terms decided with administration of seminaries.

The creators of the amendment, the JUI-F leader maintained, want to drive a wedge between the government and the seminaries.

He argued that the government’s faults were being associated with clerics and that is why they want to ruin seminaries.

The victims of Peshawar school attack were not only children of army personnel, according to Maulana Fazl,  but they were also children of the JUI-F leaders.

He pointed out that from 1994 to 2004 there was a ban on registration of religious seminaries.

The JUI-F chief said Muslims can bear anything but not blasphemy of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), adding that though the West actually took up the initiative of extremism it blames Muslims for it.

He recalled that once Gen Musharraf had asked him that they should accept that they were slaves of the US but the JUI-F leader refused to do so.


Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2015.