Azhar Qadri
SRINAGAR: Days after Kashmir’s high priest Grand Mufti shot a fatwa against an all-girl rock band, another Islamic scholar in the Valley on Tuesday said all musical groups and cultural shows were un-Islamic and led towards destruction.
Mufti Nazir Ahmad, the head of Dar-ul-Uloom Raheemiya, said there was no place for music shows in Islam. Dar-ul-Uloom Raheemiya is among the top religious seminaries in the Muslim-majority region.
“The point is what does Islam has to say about it. The answer is, Islam simply does not allow these music shows, these cultural shows. This is not the decision of today but this is the Islamic law for 1,400 years,” Mufti Nazir said over telephone.
The controversy sparked by an online hate buzz against the all-girl rock band is nowhere near an end as it has pitched conservative sections of society and clergy against those supporting the teenage girls.
So far, the Grand Mufti has issued a fatwa against the girls and castigated the Chief Minister for extending support to them. Hardline separatist group led by Syed Ali Geelani also spoke unfavourably about the rock band and political Islamist outfit Jamaat-e-Islami too criticised it.
‘Pragaash’ — the first all-girl rock band to emerge from Kashmir — has been disbanded after the outcry against it.
Mufti Nazir said the path girls are treading could be dangerous.
“On the one hand, society is shouting against the injustice being done to girls and on the other we are saying that they be allowed to sing and dance…and wear jeans…There is a sexual storm going on,” he said.
Mufti Nazir lashed out at the “intellectuals with wayward mindset” saying that they wanted to destroy society.
“They want girls to go out of the control of their parents… it is unfortunate that people are not waking up while society is getting sucked into a marsh,” he said.
(Tribune)
