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Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Pakistan Ulema Council calls for interfaith dialogueStaff Report
LAHORE: Pakistan Ulema Council’s central chairman Allama Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi has called for interfaith dialogue for peace and interfaith harmony. He said that interfaith harmony is only possible if we “respect each other’s religion. London incident could be an act of individual but relating it to any religion or nation is not justified.”
He was addressing the Interfaith Dialogue Conference in Vienna, Austria. More than 200 delegates of different religions across the world participated in the conference.
Speakers at the conference stressed that these types of dialogues should be organised worldwide. Speakers also condemned the attacks on mosques in reaction to British soldier’s murder. They said people of different religions are living across the world but there are some groups of extremists and miscreants who want clashes between religions.
Delegates also passed a resolution in which they condemned the announcement of Terry Jones to burn 3,200 copies of Quran on September 11 and demanded US government to stop him. They said that miscreants like Terry Jones should be condemned no matter which religion they follow. They also hailed British government for not blaming Muslims for the killing of the British soldier.
Allama Tahir Ashrafi while talking to Austrian media said that Islam teaches peace and love. “Jihad in Islam is also necessary for peace and for the help of oppressed people,” he added. He said that currently the wars being fought in world are in Muslim countries or with Muslim countries.
He added that interfaith harmony suffers when Muslims face discriminatory behaviour by other religions. Asharfi said, “We think that people of all religions should urge the governments of all countries to stand with the oppressed nations and stop supporting the dictators”.
Replying to a question about Syria, he was of the view that world should stand against barbarity in Syria as Islam does not allow murder of any innocent and one who kills any innocent is the killer of whole humanity according to Islam.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk