Eye likes to think that we render a very useful service to readers by spotting media material which might have passed them by (or the media has forgotten to tell them).
One such startling piece which appears to have kept its head down is from Ziaddin Sardar, writing in the New Statesman (19 June).
Sardar reports on a fatwa issued by Deobandi mullahs in India. They had gathered at a conference the week before in Delhi, which most Indian Muslim sects attended. Sardar reports: 'the gathering declared that jihad and terrorism have no connection. The very idea of a terrorist glorying in violence and describing himself as a jihadi was denounced as an abomination. The conference saw terrorism as the greatest threat facing Muslim societies today. Finally, all the mullahs present signed an oath of allegiance: "We are bound by the fatwa of Darul Uloom Deoband [a religious seminary] and undertake that we shall condemn terrorism and spread Islam's message of global peace."'
The Deoband seminary, we learn, is greatly respected throughout the Muslim world. Its scholars led a revolt against the British in 1857. Young militants studying religion in Pakistan and Afghanistan go to Deobandi establishments, according to Sardar. They are tough on oppressors of Islam, so this fatwa should have had wide coverage in the west. We wonder why it hasn't.

Labels: Islam, news