Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Monday urged clerics to help the government project the true image of Islam to counter confusion being spread against Muslims and their faith. Talking to a delegation of clerics led by Saleemullah Khan and consisting of Maulana Taqi Usmani, Dr Abdul Razzaq Iskandar, Qari Muhammad Hanif Jalandhri, Dr Abdul Khan, Maulana Anwarul Haq, Saifullah Rabbani, Maulana Naeem, Mufti Muhammad, Qari Saeedur Rahman, Qari Abdul Rashid and Mufti Abdul Hameed at Prime MinisterÂ’s House, Aziz said that madrassas were playing an important role in imparting religious education to students. He urged the clerics to press madrassa students to acquire contemporary education with religious education.
After the meeting, Qari Hanif Jalandhry told Daily Times that the clerics had suggested to the prime minister that the government should make legislation if it wanted to resolve the mosques issue. “We have proposed that a Tahafuz-e-Masajid (protection of mosques) bill should be introduced to deal with such issues,” he said, adding that Aziz had promised them that the government would consider their proposal.
Qari Hanif said that Aziz had also agreed to consider a clericsÂ’ proposal for setting up government-clerics committees at the district level to prevent issues like the occupation of a library by Jamia Hafsa students from happening again.
“We also discussed the issue of foreign students studying in Pakistani madrassas and asked the prime minister to honour his commitment made to clerics on convening a meeting of senior officials of the education, religious affairs and interior ministries and clerics to resolve the issue,” said Qari Hanif, adding that Aziz had assured the delegation that the meeting would be held soon.
