Step to ‘eliminate the menace of religious extremism and sectarian violence’
The administration will finalise a code of conduct for the preachers in Mosques to follow
In Pakistan, Friday sermons will now have to be delivered only after being approved by the administration, the Dawn News reported. The administration will reportedly also monitor the sermons. The regulation for now will only be at capital mosques in Islamabad.
The federal government of Pakistan has decided to go ahead with this so that peace can be ensured between all sects.
“Unfortunately, loudspeakers of mosques have been misused which promote sectarian hatred and extremism so Friday sermons of capital mosques will be monitored by special branch and a weekly report will be submitted to the deputy commissioner,” according to sources quoted by Pakistan Today.
It was initially decided to issue written sermons to mosques and imambargahs in the city. Scholars from various sectors and administrators of places of worship were called for a meeting with the capital administration in this regard.
The step comes in order to ‘eliminate the menace of religious extremism and sectarian violence’.
The idea was largely opposed by scholars, administrators and prayer leaders, officials said, as a number of mosques and imambargahs are not supervised by the administration but by the Auqaf department.
However, it was later decided that sermons would only be delivered on matters selected by the administration, which were shared with the scholars and prayer leaders, who agreed.
Following the decision, Islamabad administration had formed a 12-member committee of prayer leaders from Deobandi, Ahle-Hadith, Barelvi and Shia school of thoughts, which will finalise its code of conduct and submit its report to the Islamabad administration, said the sources privy to the development.
“On Monday, our final code of conduct will be finalised as the committee is working on it,” said Maulana Zamir Ahmed Sajid, who is a member of the committee.
