Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) on Wednesday strongly condemned the attack carried out on army-run school in Peshawar, saying that the killing of innocent children and teachers was a barbaric act.
“Linking killing of innocent human beings with Islam and Jihad can only be termed as ignorance and it has no room in Islam,” PUC Chairman Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi said.
In a fatwa issued by Darul Aftah of PUC on Wednesday, Ashrafi said all school of thoughts, all religions and sects have agreed that incident of Peshawar was “inhuman and ferocious”. He said the Ulema has never endorsed killing of innocent people and added those who are linking the unfortunate Peshawar incident with Islam and Muslims are also not serving the humanity.
The fatwa further elaborated that Islam considers killing of a person as killing of the entire humanity and Islam does not permit killing of children, senior citizens and women even during Jihad. He said that killing of teachers and students are against the teaching of Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) who had preached respect of teachers.
In the fatwa, PUC has appealed to religious and political leaderships to focus on internal and external policies and find solution for elimination of terrorism with unity.
Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi also announced countrywide Pakistan Solidarity Day on December 19 to express solidarity with families of Peshawar victims and to condemn terrorism. He said special sermons on Peshawar incident would also be delivered during Friday prayers in more than 73,000 mosques running under Wafaq-ul-Masajid Pakistan.