Afghan President Welcomes Clerics Fetwa on Afghanistan War

President Ashraf Ghani welcomed the fatwa (an Islamic directive) issued by religious scholars on Monday, saying that government will fully support the clerics' stance.

News ID: 70544

Date: 05 June 2018 - 16:18

TEHRAN (Defapress)-“In the context of the current situation in Afghanistan and this holy month of Ramadan, our respected Ulema have done a great job, which I would like to thank them on behalf of government and the people of Afghanistan with full sincerity,” the president said, Tolonews reported.

“Considering the ongoing illegitimate and imposed war and by understanding the current situation of Afghanistan, religious scholars across the country came together and issued a fatwa based on which the current war in Afghanistan is completely illegitimate and explosions, suicide, violence and extremism has no place in Islam,” Ghani added.

President Ghani directed all government agencies to develop an action plan in the near future to implement recommendations of the religious scholars.

Ghani meanwhile condemned attacks on religious clerics and once again asked the Taliban to stop war and follow their aims through peaceful ways.

“Through intra-Afghani talks, choose the path of peace and instead of taking part in destruction of the country, take part in construction of the country,” Ghani said in a message to the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Taliban who rejected their involvement in an attack on religious scholars gathering on Monday, called the fatwa “American and symbolic” and claimed that such summits are held by the choice of America.

This comes after on Monday more than 2,000 Afghan religious scholars from around the country issued a fatwa, saying “the ongoing war in Afghanistan is forbidden under the Islamic law”.

For years, Afghanistan has been plagued by violence by militants, who often use suicide bombers and claim that their struggle is a holy war to impose Islamic rule.

“We the scholars of Afghanistan declare this war as unjust and in contradiction to the Sharia (Islamic law). Only the blood of Muslims is shed in this war and nothing else, therefore we issue a fatwa to end this war as soon as possible,” said religious scholar Khuda Bakkhsh Mohseni while reading the declaration.

“We call on the warring factions to announce a ceasefire,” said Enayatullah Baligh, a religious scholar.

Meanwhile, the religious scholars repeated their call on the Taliban to accept the Afghan government’s “unconditional” peace offer.

“We the religious scholars call on the Taliban to give a positive response to the Afghan government’s peace offer in order to prevent further bloodshed,” the religious scholars said.

At the end of the gathering, a suicide bomber targeted the scholars and 14 people were killed in the explosion.

The sources added that 17 others were wounded.

The explosion happened near a gathering of over 2,000 religious scholars at Loya Jirga, the Grand Assembly, tent close to Kabul Polytechnic University sharply after the Ulema issued a fatwa against the ongoing war in the country.

Kabul police said it was a suicide bombing.

“The suicide attack happened outside the (Loya Jirga) tent when religious scholars were leaving the gathering,” Kabul Police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said.

Stanikzai said according to their initial information, the explosion left seven people dead and nine others wounded.

Taliban denied any involvement in the attack.

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