LAKKI MARWAT, April 10: The senior vice-president of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Maulana Samiul Haq, on Wednesday said lawyers and Ulema were two sides of the same coin as all Muslim scholars were great jurists of Islamic law.

Maulana Samiul Haq, who is also chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, was speaking at a function of the district bar here on Wednesday.

He recalled that the Islamic law was sidelined during the British occupation of subcontinent when the English law was introduced to tackle the natives.

The MMA leader assured the lawyers that judges and attorneys would not be replaced. Rather, he added, they would be educated on the Islamic law.

The MMA leader said that the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq had exposed the UK-US intentions to subjugate Muslims and control the oil-rich Muslim countries.

When Iraq was not spared for allegedly possessing chemical and biological weapons, how Pakistan could hope to be forgiven for its peaceful nuclear deterrence programme? he asked.

NWFP assembly deputy speaker Ikramullah Shahid and Maulana Syed Yousaf Shah were prominent among those who attended the gathering.