Pakistani scholars stress need for interfaith harmony against Deobandi and Wahhabi intolerance
Report by Anil Datta
Source: The News, October 16, 2014
Karachi: The imperative for harmony and better understanding between different faith traditions in the world has never been more urgent. The tide of religious conflicts and violence has risen to levels which force us to recall the periods of human history we would rather disown or attribute to pre-modernist consciousness.
These views were expressed by Mumtaz Ahmad, the executive director of Iqbal International Institute for Research and Dialogue at International Islamic University, Islamabad, in his keynote address at a two-day seminar, “The issue of religious harmony in Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East”, at a hotel on Wednesday morning.
He blamed the situation in Pakistan on the injection of religiosity into body politics through the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s by General Zia-ul-Haq. Referring to Iraq, he said as long as Saddam was there, there was not even an iota of sectarianism or interfaith friction.
All Shias, Sunnis, and Christians were treated absolutely at par. It was only after the US carried out its invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam that sectarianism reared its ugly head.
Kristof W Duwaerts, resident representative of the Hans-Seidel Foundation in Pakistan, said religious harmony in Pakistan right now was not at an ideal level.
“While it is not up to me to be telling my hosts as to how to go about it, I am still looking forward to a dialogue between all participants and take back some of the lessons to Germany.”
The event is being held under the aegis of the Area Study Centre for Europe (ASCE) of Karachi University and the Hans-Seidel Foundation, Islamabad.
Dr Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi of the University of Peshawar, in his analysis of the situation in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan, said Wahabi-ism was acting as a catalyst for violence in South Asia and blamed it on the Afghan Mujahideen.
He recounted how the Saudis, when they entered the Afghan Jihad in the 1980s, imposed Wahabi-ism on the people there.
In India, he said, it was the Shias and the Sunni Sufis or Barelvis who had formed a joint front against intolerant shades of Deobandism and its semi-Wahhabi nature.
The Islamic State (IS), till recently the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), he said, was presently spreading its tentacles in Pakistan through local Wahhabi and Deobandi outfits.