More blasphemy law madness
A friend has drawn my attention to the following news report:
The text is as below:
Clerics receive threats for conducting Taseer’s funeral prayers
Press Trust Of India
Lahore, January 13, 2011
Three Pakistani clerics who conducted the funeral and memorial prayers for slain Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer have received death threats, police said on Thursday. Maulana Afzal Chishti, the head of the ulema or clerics’ wing of the ruling PPP, had led the funeral prayer for Taseer along with Qari Muhammad Younus. The qul or memorial ceremony was led by Qari Akhtar Qureshi.
“We have provided police guards to two clerics – Younus and Qureshi – after they received death threats probably from those who consider Taseer a blasphemer,” a senior police officer, who did not want to be named, told PTI.
The third cleric, Chishti, had gone into hiding because he feared for the lives of his family members, the police officer said.
Taseer was gunned down in Islamabad on January 4 by a police guard who said he was angered by the Governor’s criticism of the controversial blasphemy law.
After a group of over 500 clerics and scholars of the Barelvi school of thought asked Muslims not to lead or offer the funeral prayer for Taseer, top clerics in Lahore had refused to lead the namaz-e-janaza.
“Younis and Qureshi have publicly expressed regret for participating in the prayers and re-embraced Islam after admitting their mistake due to pressure from hardliners, but we cannot withdraw the security provided to them,” the police officer said.
The clerics of the historical Badshahi Mosque, the Data Darbar shrine and the mosque at the Governor’s House had refused to lead the funeral prayer for Taseer.
Several groups of clerics had announced that anyone who led the funeral prayer of a “blasphemer” would be considered an infidel.
From Rashid:
Islamic scholar attacks Pakistan’s blasphemy laws
In the wake of Salmaan Taseer’s murder, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi declares Islamic councils are “telling lies to the people”
Declan Walsh in Islamabad, The Guardian, London, Thursday 20 January 2011 16.43 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/20/islam-ghamidi-pakistan-blasphemy-laws
From Rashid:
Please open the following link and pay attention to beginning lines. Because of “blessings” of 2nd constitutional amendment and when Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto took over the role of God to decide who is a Muslim and who is not, today every Muslim Pakistani’s belief is questionable. And people right and left declare others Kafir (non-Muslim). As a result, now any Pakistani Muslim who dares to open his mouth or use his pen has to prove his credentials that he is a Muslim. And still people don’t believe him. Now not only Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement is considered a “non-Muslim” by Pakistanis, but rather every Pakistani Muslim is considered a non-Muslim by fellow Muslims. Allah-O-Akbar.
Shortcut to Paradise
By Iftikhar Naseem
http://pakteahouse.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IFTI_NAMA_2.jpg
Admin’s note: For ease and clarity of reading, I have converted the above image to a pdf file at this link.
From ikram:
Finally – “Taseer funeral prayer leader forced to flee from Pakistan” [Tribune]
Historically clerics have been a scourge of any religion, be they of the biblical or our times. Quran (i.e. Allah) admonished Muslims ahead of time from biblical examples of this impending “Back to the Future” evil of fatwas issuers, the firebrand Mullahs with these verses –
2:79. Woe, therefore, to those who write the Scripture with their own hands and then say, `This is from Allâh.’ They do so that they may thereby acquire some paltry gains. Woe to them for what their hands have written (to give them out as Word of God). Again (We say), woe to them for what they do (of evil deed).
3:78. There are some among them who twist their tongues while reciting their Scripture that you may think that (what they recite) is a part of the Scripture, whilst it is no part of the Scripture and they say, `This is from Allâh,’ whereas it is not from Allâh. They tell a lie in the name of Allâh deliberately.
62:5. The case of those who were charged to observe (the law of) Torah but did not carry out (its commandments in its true spirit), is like the case of a donkey that carries (a load of) volumes (of Books; he neither understands them nor gathers any advantage from them). Wretched is the case of the people who cry lies to the Message of Allâh. And Allâh guides no unjust people to success. [Nooruddin]