BAHAWALPUR: Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani has defended the council’s stance that man does not require his first wife’s permission for second marriage and he may seek permission only from union council (UC) chairman/secretary.

He says the National Assembly is the forum for implementation of CII’s recommendations and it may discuss and approve them for their incorporation into the Constitution.

Maulana Sheerani, who is also MNA and chief of JUI-F Balochistan, was talking to Dawn at the Islamia University Bahawalpur after presiding over the concluding session of the three-day International Quran Conference on Wednesday.

Explaining the role of the CII, he said the council, under the Constitution, had no power to implement its recommendations to make them part of the Constitution and all powers lay with the NA. However, he added, the president, public and the Supreme Court could exert pressure on the assembly for approval of CII’s recommendations and incorporating them into the Constitution.

He said the public might pressurise their respective elected representatives to approve CII’s recommendations.

As regards the Supreme Court, Maulana Sheerani said it had taken a suo motu notice for the non-implementation of the CII’s recommendations.

He said he had cleared a backlog of hundreds of the CII recommendations to the NA, adding that recommendations pertained to 1997-2009 period regarding CII’s viewpoints to Islamise the Constitution. Now he would submit the CII’s recommendations to the NA for 2011-12, he added.

Mr Sheerani said the Pakistan government had a contradictory stance on the war on terror as on one side the country fought against the US war while on the other side, it also received coalition support fund worth millions of dollars. He observed the western countries were out to prove that Islam is a religion of terrorism.

Earlier, delivering his presidential address in the conference, the CII chairman said the council would further improve its contacts with the IUB and other universities across the country to increase its consultation on Islamic issues.

Saudi Arabian cultural attaché Dr Hazzah Bin Abdullah Al-Ghamdi, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said his country would establish a modern language laboratory at the university for promoting Arabic to help people understand the Quran better.

Faculty of Islamic Learning dean Saleem Tariq said 200 Arabic books were available at the department’s website for the facility of students and teachers of the university.

About 100 delegates from the United States, Kuwait, Bangladesh and from across the country participated in the conference.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2014