The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has asked President Asif Ali Zardari to amend procedural rules of the council to make it mandatory for the CII chairman to appear in person and present reports before parliament, so that the recommendations could get attention of the legislature.
The relevant rules of procedure and conduct of business in parliament should also be amended to allow the chairman to present the council reports, CII Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani told Pakistan Today in an interview on Saturday.
Sherani said he recently held a meeting with President Zardari to apprise him about the performance of the council and other issues. “I asked President Zardari to give weight to the recommendations of the CII, which is a constitutional body and mandated with giving advice to the legislature whether or not a certain law is repugnant to Islam,” he added.
He was of the view that the government should take seriously the recommendations of the CII instead of putting its reports on parliament’s shelves.
To a question regarding the revival of the MMA, Sherani said JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had contacted Allama Sajid Naqvi and Sahibzada Abu-Alkhair Muhammad Zubair in this regard.
“We have no problem with any of the other religious party vis-à-vis revival of the MMA, however, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is the biggest obstacle in this regard,” Sherani said, adding that the JI had reservations on sitting with JUI-F in Balochistan, even when all religious parties are united at one platform.
To a question, Sherani rejected any political alliance with PML-N, saying it had no political vision. He said the JUI-F would prefer seat adjustment instead of entering into a political alliance with any other party. However, he did not rule out religious parties’ alliance ahead of the coming general election.
Sherani said the vice chancellors of all universities of Islamabad and high-ups of the Higher Education Commission were invited to the CII for discussing syllabi of religious seminaries.
“I have asked the university heads and HEC to help CII in preparing a strategy for inclusion of science subjects in the syllabus of madrassas. If we cannot ensure inclusion of Islamic subjects in the universities’ curriculum, we can at least introduce science subjects in madrassas,” he added. Sherani agreed that the students of religious seminaries must be apprised of modern science subjects. To a question, Sherani said generals were the real rulers of the country and political rulers were nothing more than their touts.
