70,000 Muslim clerics pass ‘fatwa’ against terrorism

At least 70,000 Muslim clerics have passed a fatwa against the global terrorist organisations and militant groups, including the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

According to The Times of India, a document protesting global terrorist activity was signed by almost 1.5 million attendees during an annual gathering of South Asian Sunni Muslims in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh this week, reports Huffington Post.

The event has bolstered “clerics from across the world, who were part of the event, to pass the fatwa,” said Mufti Mohammad Saleem Noori, one of the clerics.

The clerics want to spread the message that they condemn terrorism, and that they neither consider these terrorist groups like the Islamic State to be true Islamic organisations nor view the members of these organisations as Muslims.

The terror attacks in Paris last month, claimed to be carried out by the Islamic State, inspired the group of clerics to pass the fatwa to spread the message, said the chairman of the gathering.

According to The Hindu, Sunni seminaries in India have been passing similar fatwas since 2008, but now the clerics are disturbed by the Islamic State in particular.

"This terror group has killed far more Muslims than Christians, westerners or any other religious community," said Maulana Qasim Nomani, a seminary leader.

"It is a terror group with political ambitions," he added.

"It is written in the Quran that killing one innocent person is equivalent to killing all humanity," said Mohammed Ehsan Raza Khan, the head of a shrine in Rajasthan.

The clerics also condemned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal for a ban on immigration and travel on Muslims entering the US earlier this week.

A policy like that would "only cultivate hatred and divide people," one cleric said.