Minaj-ul-Quran

This article is part of the Counter-Terrorism Portal project of Spinwatch.

Minaj-ul-Quran is an international Islamic non-governmental organisation, (claiming to be non-political) that is situated in Lahore, Pakistan. It has a presence in over 80 countries worldwide and was founded in 1980/1981 by Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a Sufi scholar, former Pakistani Minister and friend of deceased Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Dr Qadri now resides in Canada.

Minaj-ul-Quran emerged within the mainstream UK media in January 2010, when it issued a 600 page fatwa condemning suicide bombings and organised a weekend 'anti-terror camp' at Warwick University on 07-08 August 2010 for the purpose of de-radicalising Muslims'..

According to the BBC: Minaj-ul-Quran "is attracting the attention of policymakers and security chiefs who are continuing to look for allies in the fight against extremists".

Fatwa on Suicide Bombing

In March 2010, Minaj-ul-Quran issued a 600 page Fatwa which declared that suicide bombings and terrorism were "totally un-Islamic".. The fatwa argues that attacks against all innocent citizens are "absolutely against the teachings of Islam and that Islam does not permit such acts on any excuse, reason or pretext ... all these acts are grave violations of human rights and constitute kufr, disbelief, under Islamic law.".

The Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremism think-tank that received approximately £1 million funding from the British government argued that the fatwa was

"a highly significant step towards eradicating Islamist terrorism ... [and rebutting] ... fatwas by Wahhabi-influenced clerics and Islamist ideologues initiated [sic] modern terrorism against civilians."

According to neoconservative blog, The Spittoon, the fatwa criticised

"Islamists who seek to reject democracy, liberty and human rights due to a warped interpretation of Islam, and advocate[s] that Muslims [should] engage and recognise that Islam [is] a faith which welcom[s] democracy, human rights, liberty and modern states. [The fatwa] refuted the idea of the need for a single caliphate [and suggested that] all states where there was justice were Islamic. All states could claim to be caliphates if there was democracy and justice."

The Spittoon also stated that Dr Tahir ul-Qadri in the Q&A session

"explicitly condemned all sorts of terrorism without reserve, and explained that even if people have just causes, or perceive that they have just causes, they cannot engage in terrorism. He condemned suicide bombing and terrorism in Israel and Palestine, and anywhere else in the world."

Criticism of Fatwa

Critics have suggested that the fatwa issued by Dr Tahir ul-Qadri add's nothing new to the already extensive amounts of rulings that have been issued against terrorism and suicide bombings by Muslim scholars.

Brian Whitaker of the Guardian criticised the Fatwa for being discredited because "Tahir ul-Qadri was a close friend of the late Benazir Bhutto - which immediately puts him beyond the pale". In response to the Quilliam Foundations argument that Dr Tahir ul-Qadri had masses of grassroots support and credibility, Brian Whitaker argued that he may well have 'hundreds of thousands' of followers but among an estimated total of more than a billion Muslims around the world that doesn't make his organisation particularly large or influential. In Britain, it controls only a handful of mosques out of an estimated 1,600 or so." In relation the fatwa, Whitaker criticised the concept by arguing that if one looks "hard enough you can find a fatwa for almost any purpose ... in some countries, if you can't find one that suits you, you can pay a scholar to issue one. Governments in Muslim countries do it all the time."

Anti-Terror/De-radicalisation Camp

Before the events launch, Dr Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri stated:

"I feel it is my duty to save the younger generation from radicalisation and wave [sic] of terroristic recruitment in the West ... I have announced an intellectual and spiritual war against extremism and terrorism. I believe this is the time for moderate Islamic scholars who believe in peace to stand up."

Even though the organisation is receipt of no UK government funding, the Times argued that "its agenda is comparable to the official Prevent strategy, under which community organisations are encouraged to work together to counter extremism.

Sectarian Comments

In an interview with Allegra Mostyn-Owen for the London Evening Standard, Dr Tahir ul-Qadri reveled his sectarian tendencies when he stated that "no terrorists have emerged from a Sunni or Sufi background: instead, they have come from the Salafis (Wahhabis) or Deobandi [backgrounds] ... every Salafi and Deobandi is not a terrorist but I have no hesitation in saying that everyone is a well-wisher of terrorists and this has not been appreciated by the Western governments.”

See Also

• Musharraf Hussain al-Azhari
• Karimia Institute