February 26, 2006	Sunday	Muharram 27, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 25: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said here on Saturday that Pakistan was considering to take the issue of the blasphemous cartoons to international courts.

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations Munir Akram has been asked to sound opinions on making the move, the minister told journalists after addressing a seminar held by the Muslim Thinkers Forum on caliph Hazrat Umar Farooq (RA).

In Islamabad, President Gen Pervez Musharraf has consulted Islamic figures on the issue, disclosed the minister.

Former foreign minister Agha Shahi had proposed such a course in his article published in Dawn on February 12.

In his address at the seminar the minister observed that the Muslim world was in a quandary today because it lacked a leader of the calibre of Hazrat Umar. He suspected some sinister designs behind the cartoons. Otherwise the European countries were well aware of the reverence in which the Muslims all over the world hold the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

Sheikh Rashid said it was time for the Muslims of Pakistan and the world to unite putting aside their differences and divisions.

PPP’s Senator-elect Dr Babar Awan told the seminar that “everyone will be prepared to help” if the matter of cartoons was taken to international legal forum.

Mr Awan regretted that rulers of Muslim countries did not follow the humility and the laws given by Hazrat Umar.

On the other hand, he observed Michael Hurt put the caliph’s name second to the holy Prophet’s in his famous book 100 Great Personalities of the World. The author selected them because only Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was able to implement his value system in the form of state, and system of government and because a number of legislations introduced by Umar were adopted by the West, he said.

Another speaker, Pir Naseeruddin Naseer of Golra Sharif, expressed his sorrow over sectarian divisions in the Muslim community which, he said, had been propagated by false historians.

Other speakers, such as retired Admiral Ifhtikhar Ahmad Sirohey, International Islamic University president Dr Mahmud Ahmad Ghazi and Thinkers Forum chief Niaz Khan, dwelt on Hazrat Umar’s administrative skills in introducing customs duty, dealing with famine and epidemics and expanding the frontiers of Muslim rule.

The seminar proposed instituting the Order of Nishan-i-Umar Farooq award by the state to honour the second caliph’s good governance acumen.