President Karzai has urged the Ulema Council to raise wider and louder voices against suicide attacks in Afghanistan. He demanded Mullahs across the country to condemn such violence. He said "If a suicide bomber comes and blows himself up, is this Islam? No, never. He is an enemy of Islam trained by the enemy of Islam". [Quote from TOLOnews]
A Mullah came up with an interesting and truthful respond. He said, "If the President asks for the Ulema to position itself against the crimes of the Taliban, then the President should not forgive the criminals any more, and not call them brothers". Though our President has been playing sound by avoiding a direct mention of Taliban in previous such appeals, or condemnations of civilian casualties. He prefers using the blanket "enemies of Afghanistan", and rather calls them "disenchanted brothers" when Taliban are mentioned.
Civilians make up for the majority of suicide attack victims. Taliban justify such violence through references to Islamic Sharia or Hadith of Prophet Muhammad. Ignorant illiterate Taliban fighters who cannot read Holy Quran have become self-proclaimed authority on defining Sharia and Islamic jurisprudence in areas of their influence.
But what is more destructive to our society than the manipulation by militants is the silence of majority of religious scholars not only in Afghanistan but also Middle East or Arab states to be precise, from where it all originated and take the dose of it's ideological backup and financial support.
On Massoud's 11th anniversary, former warlord Rasool Sayyaf had strong words for militants. He has spoken for the first time with such clarity, strongly condemning Taliban for sending suicide bombers to blow up among innocent Afghans. Sayyaf had a critical tone toward Government about dealing with Taliban.
He said if some militants are hanged publicly in Kabul, nobody will dare to carry attacks anymore. He strongly condemned suicide attacks, criticizing Ulema and Muftis who have issued Fatwas in support to the acts of violence by militants.
Most of religious clerics prefer silence on this issue due to security threats. Many have been targeted and killed. It is an issue that needs much wider debate and steps. Afghanistan could lobby at the Organization of Islamic Conference for a wider debate about it to mobilize scholars of the Islamic world to come with strong and widespread Fatwas against violence and suicide attacks.
Militancy is not a problem just for the US and the Western world. It has affected the Muslim world more than the security threats to the West. Muslims have been the largest victims of violence by these radicals. The silence of majority Muslim scholars has not only provided these militants with a confidence of no ideological opposition from within Islam, but also they are self-satisfied with their fanatic justifications destroying the very roots of the entire religion. The fact is that, there have been some known scholars opposing radical extremists. But they have all escaped their countries and living in exile.
There is not a single prominent religious scholar with accepted authority in our region who opposes extremism in public. It is rather in contrary. The global militant Jihadis have a very strong ideological supporter in South Asia. Zakir Naik, who is the most watched religious scholar in the countries with the biggest Muslim populations, always has a defensive perspective toward the topics related to extremism. He runs the Peace TV, which is the most watched on cables in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, where Islamic militancy poses the worst threats.
When I walk in the bookstores and literary stalls of Kabul, Mazar and other cities, the most available books are translations of Zakir Naik's speeches in local languages. It is rooting the seeds of extremism among mass populations. And once these readings and teachings result in reaction of thoughts and actions, it is violent.
Following Taliban strategic mass communication propaganda regularly in their videos, I have noted that majority of suicide bombers—via their pre-attack interviews released later—are convinced by Taliban suicide-attack recruiting veterans through religious justification. It needs to be countered among public beyond the military COIN strategy, for a tolerant society.
The Muslim scholars around the world should be most worried about Islamic extremism that is destroying the Muslim world from within. It is a tragedy that the silent majority scholars have kept mum, partly because most pretend to take it as a political war for which only the US and West is responsible to fight, while the real victim of Jihadi extremists is Islam and the Muslim civilization itself.
OIC can play vital role in mobilizing the statesmen of Muslim world to launch a mass campaign and debate through religious clerics against suicide attacks and Jihadi terrorism.