It is quite commendable as well as appreciable that visiting Grand Mufti of Egypt Dr Shawki Ibrahim Abdel Karim Allam has endorsed Pakistan’s national narrative against extremism and terrorism and quite clearly said that issuing decrees is not the job of terrorists sitting in caves as only the scholars having a vast knowledge of Quran, Hadith and Fiqah can issue fatwas on narrative issues.

According to the reports in the media, the Grand Maufti has said this while speaking at a roundtable discussion on ‘Paigham-e-Pakistan: A National Narrative to Counter Terrorism” is Islamabad the other day.

The visiting Grand Mufti is reported to have said assertively that no individual can declare anyone infidel as it is against the very teachings of Islam, declaring anyone infidel is a very dangerous approach and the Muslim Ummah should play its role to counter such trends, the negative thinking must be transformed into positive one with joint efforts, he has read the Arabic translation of Paigham-e-Pakistan which clearly reflects the message of Pakistani state and is also compatible with the thinking of the world, it is the need of the hour to spread Islamic teachings to save the young generations from extremism and terrorism and modern tools of communication should be used to effectively counter the narrative of terrorist organizations.

It is quite good that the Grand Mufti of Egypt travelled all the way to Islamabad to attend the round table discussion and also endorsed Pakistan’s national narrative against extremism and terrorism. It is suggested that if not already being done, Paigham-e-Pakistan should be translarted, like in Arabic, in all internationally speaking languages around the world and widely circulated through our missions all over for enabling more and more people understand , appreciate and support our national narrative against extremism, terrorism and militancy.

ASIM MUNIR,

Rawalpindi, March 22.