ISLAMABAD-The participants at a two-day seminar demanded of the government to re-assess present curricula of Shariah faculties of the countries to enable the graduates to cope with latest requirements of the modern day. The seminar titled Toward Revisiting the Debate on Shariah: Prospects and Challenges for Pakistan ended on Tuesday held under the auspices of the Iqbal International Institute for Research & Dialogue (IRD) of the International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI) and Council of Islamic Ideology (CII). Those who addressed on the concluding day of the seminar included Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani, Maulana Mohsin Muzafar Naqvi, Syed Saeed Ahmed Shah Gujrati, Justice Syed Afzal Hadier, Dr Moin Cheema, Dr Zafar Ishaq Ansari, Naeem Jina, Khurshid Nadeem, Dr Jameela Shoukat and others. Rector IIUI Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik, chaired the concluding session. A number of recommendations were adopted in the concluding session according to which it was stressed upon the need of a new look at Shariah Laws keeping in view the prevailing situation in the world. The participants asked the government to re-asses present curricula of Shariah faculties of the countries to enable the graduates to cope with latest requirements of the modern day. Dr Muhammad Khalid Masood, Chairman of CII, while delivering his keynote address said Shariah stands for justice and peace but it is the cruelest irony of modern times that it conjures up fearful images of amputated hands, stoning and lashing in the western media. Regrettably, in the Muslim minds also Shariah invokes the notions of hudud, retribution and punishment. Debates on Shariah in Pakistan take the shape of demonstration against or in favour of its implementation and are associated with suicide bombings, militancy and bloodshed. It is perhaps the absence of serious rational analysis of the issues regarding Shariah in the public sphere that has turned these debates to be violent and bloodstained. Dr. Khalid added that recent debates on Shariah are not limited to the Muslim countries. Shariah is debated in the whole world including South Africa, United States of America, Britain and Canada. These debates have brought home the fact that we are living in an interdependent globalised world and whereas non-Muslim societies can no longer dismiss Shariah as irrelevant, Muslims cannot also effectively exercise Shariah as a modern legal system without taking the global context into consideration. Dr Khalid speaking on the present Tahrik-e-Taliban said that it began as a movement for enforcement of Shariah in Swat and Waziristan but gradually became politicised. In general, all these movement failed to introduce social and legal reforms. Debates about Shariah have repeatedly ignored to analyse the failure of Shariah movements or to discuss the issues in the enforcement of Shariah in the present day globalised world. Dr Khalid Masood stressed the need of Ijtihad through Parliament because the Muslim Parliaments represent Muslims aspirations and dreams.