THE think-tanks and mainstream intelligentsia have been stressing the need for eradicating the sources of terrorism, but its identification has been different. An army force is a group of men who physically fight an enemy; but think-tanks, intelligentsia, academics, scholars, columnists, writers and, above all, ulema are meant to take this fight to intellectual levels.

Recently, probably on the initiation of the army, this task has been taken up by involving mainstream scholars. I would like to invite them to consider famous jurist Sherwani Mustafa’s conclusion — that terrorism has varied offshoots but still it has two general sources:

One, Western intervention in almost every part of the world, especially Muslim lands. Two, sectarian hatred within Muslim societies.

There is a need for launching a nationwide programme, as part of a deradicalisation process, for educating the masses through mosques, student gatherings, seminars and workshops. For this the government needs to show its keen interest and deep involvement to train the trainers first, facilitate them to be able to deliver lectures and chart out backup plans to assess the results of this campaign. This can be called the nation’s soft army.

Prof Alya Alvi

Arid Agriculture University

Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2016