The Anti Terror Fatwa: But Who Is Listening?, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeISlam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

The Anti Terror Fatwa: But Who Is Listening?

By Salil Kader

This conference and the fatwa issued are of great importance for more reasons than one. Deoband, arguably one of the most important Islamic centres of learning in the world after the Al Azhar University at Cairo , has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the recent past. This is so because Deoband has been widely believed to be the motivating ideology behind many recognised terrorist groups like the Taliban, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Harkat ul-Mujahideen. Interestingly, what many commentators and analysts researching the phenomenon of ‘Islamist terrorism’ failed to highlight was the fact that the world-renowned seminary never endorsed the Taliban or the brand of Islam that they tried to impose upon the hapless Afghans. The Princeton University Professor Muhammad Qasim Zaman records in his book ‘The Ulama in Contemporary Islam’ (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2002) that “the Deobandi ulama were never unanimously euphoric about the Taliban … in terms of intellectual activity, too, there is a great gulf between the Deobandi Taliban and Deobandi scholars like Taqi Uthmani.” (p.139-40).

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