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| September 12, 2005 | Monday | Sha’aban 7, 1426 |
‘Ulema critical of amended law’
ISLAMABAD Sept 11: The executive committee of Wafaqul Madaris Arabia (Deobandi) met here on Sunday and expressed willingness to register seminaries affiliated with it, provided it was done under the unchanged Registration of Societies Act 1860.
Leader of the Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who runs a madressah in his hometown of D.I. Khan, also attended the meeting and later said the overwhelming majority of ulema in their speeches had expressed reservations against the presidential amendment in the registration act.
He, however, said the meeting, after giving its views to Maulana Hanif Jullundhri, had decided to let the “Ittehad Tanzeemat Madaris Deeniah” (ITMD) take a final decision.
The ITMD will hold its executive meeting on Monday to firm up its stance on the registration issue which will be conveyed to the government.
The registration of madressahs had been set in motion in the middle of last month and about 9,500 application forms were issued in the four provinces of the country. A deadline of December 31 had been set for completion of the process.
However, according to the federal secretary religious affairs Vakil Ahmed Khan only about 120 applications for registration have so far been submitted by the seminaries in about 20 days of them, 12 have been registered so far.
Maulana Fazl, also secretary general of the MMA, said the ‘Wafaq’ had no objection in principle against registration but it wanted that it should be done under the old act.
He said that the issue of seminary degrees (asnad) also came under review in the meeting and the ulema declared to wage a concerted struggle for the protection of these degrees without any compromise.
Asked by a journalist about federal Minister for Religious Affairs Ijazul Haq’s claim that he (Fazl) and chief minister NWFP Akram Durrani had been consulted and their consent was taken before initiating the amendment to the registration act, MMA leader said “he was lying”.
The Maulana also insisted that the MMA had done no wrong in getting the 17th amendment passed after the PPP Parliamentarians had also agreed on most of its provisions and what Hafiz Hussain Ahmed had said on the issue was his personal opinion.
He said whatever the MMA had done on the said amendment was meant to safeguard the sanctity of the constitution.
Responding to a question about reports of the country possibly switching over to the presidential form of government, the Maulana warned that the 1973 constitution would stand annulled if parliament was dissolved for this purpose and any attempt was made to amend the constitution and do away with the federal parliamentary system.
He said the ulema he had met seemed to have been satisfied by his arguments to allay their fears and reservations on the law of registration and hopefully they would decide in favour of the government’s scheme of registration.
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