ISLAMABAD Aug 23: The government is not perturbed by the rejection of amendments to the seminaries registration act by a meeting of ulema held in Islamabad on Monday and may promote and register seminaries outside the Wafaqs of madressahs, acording to a senior official of the ministry of religious affairs.

And secretary-general of Wafaqul Madaris Arabia Maulana Mohammad Hanif Jullundhri has clarified that the meeting was not of the Wafaq but it had been convened by the Jamiat Ahl-i- Sunnat and its recommendations were open to further discussion by the executive committee of the Wafaq.

The senior religious ministry official told Dawn that if any of the Wafaqs had any genuine reservations about the registration law, the NWFP chief minister would not have enacted the same ordinance which the other provinces had done.

The official said that the meeting which was mostly attended by local ulema, besides MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman was confined to the seminaries in Islamabad.

He said the meeting had decided to set up a largely represented committee of ulema which would hold talks with the government on matters concerning registration and expulsion of foreign students.

The chief of Wafaqul Madaris Arabia, Maulana Salimullah Khan, is expected to convene a meeting of the executive committee in a couple of days to discuss the decision of the Islamabad meeting of ulema and chalk out its plan to deal with the issue of registration.

It may be mentioned that the secretary-general (Nazim-i-Ala) of Wafaqul Madaris Qari Mohammad Hanif Jullundhri who had attended the meeting had opposed the attitude of the ulema against the registration.

Talking to Dawn, Qari Jullundhri said the recommendations of the Islamabad meeting would soon be discussed by the executive committee of Wafaqul Madaris Arabia as well as the Ittehad Tanzeemat Madaris Deenia (ITMD) and a unified position would be taken on the issue.

He said: “There was little or no objection to the registration of seminaries under the 1860 societies registration act but the ITMD had some reservations on the section 21 added to the act in the amended act dealing with certain curbs on seminaries.”

The government, he said, had assured that it would review the section to satisfy the ITMD and negotiations were underway.

The ministry official said that the deadline of December 31 would certainly be met as all the four provinces had already promulgated ordinances in line with the presidential ordinance dealing with seminaries in the federal capital.

He said the five major Wafaqs had already agreed with to the government’s decision regarding registration and they could not go back on it, adding that the alliance of five major religious institutions (Wafaqs) wanted the seminaries to pursue only academic activities, instead of advancing the political agenda of some religio-political parties.

‘‘If this attitude continues the government will strengthen the seminaries outside these Wafaqs and will register them,’’ said the official.