NEW YORK, March 7 (APP): A conference of leading Muslim scholars from across the world, held in Istanbul earlier this week, adopted a strongly worded resolution that reaffirmed Islam’s compatibility with universal human norms and called on religious institutions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and neighbouring countries to help end violence. The document will be circulated to more than 160,000 mosques in Afghanistan so that its findings may trickle into individual consciences there, according to an article published in the New York Times on Thursday.

Islamic scholars from Pakistan and Afghanistan were among the delegates to the conference on “Islamic Cooperation for a Peaceful Future in Afghanistan, held in a modestly sized hotel conference room to hammer out the rights and wrongs of the conflict in Afghanistan, the article, “What the Mullahs Are Mulling”, said.
The conference was the brainchild not of a cleric but of Neamatollah Nojumi, a professor of conflict resolution at George Mason University near Virginia, USA, who, according to the article,  came to the subject the hard way.
At the age of 14, it said,  he was a mujahid fighting the Soviets in hisnative Afghanistan. “Now his (Nojumi’s) mission is to stop Afghans from fighting Afghans. The method is straightforward,” the article said.
“Senior Afghan clerics meet with the world’s leading Islamic theologians to discuss suicide bombings, the targeting of civilians, the destruction of historical artifacts, even domestic violence.
The final resolution said, “A crime committed in the name of Islam is acrime against Islam.” Meanwhile, an Islamic scholar from India was quoted as saying in the article that NATO, not Pakistan, is complicating the situation in Afghanistan and the Kabul government is supported by a mere 10 percent of the population.
Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, who is closely associated with the ultra-orthodoxDeoband community, made those comments to an American journalist Andrew Finkel Istanbul, who wrote the Times’ article.
At the same time, according to the article, Qasmi parts company with the Taliban when it comes to the use of violence. “Conflict will not solve conflict,” he told correspondent Finkel, who quoted him in the course of his article. “Islam does not mean war,” he added.
“Although I was told not to identify participants without their permission for fear of reprisals by the Taliban, no one seemed afraid to call a spade a spade,” correspondent Finkel wrote.
“Much effort was spent debunking the notion that the struggle in Afghanistan is a holy war rather than a straightforward tussle for power.
The meeting was the third of its kind, and the overall effort has started to make a difference, according Ataur Rahman Salim, director of the Scientific Islamic Research Center in Kabul.
It is now easier to oppose the men of violence. “The majority of Islamicscholars are not afraid to speak out,” he was quoted as saying. But “some are sitting on the fence,” he added.
Several speakers supported the Taliban over the Afghan government and weremore critical of NATO bombings than of suicide attacks by insurgents, according to the article. Nor does Islam mean denying women access to education and health services, according to the draft of the final resolution cited in the article.
The document also states that the violation of women’s rights contradicts the tenets of Islam.
Participants did not expect this process to solve Afghanistan’s main problem, “government without governance,” according to Nojumi, but it does allow a burgeoning civil society movement to call both the Afghan government and insurgents to account.
“Simply by gathering people of good will in one room, the organizers believe they have succeeded where national authorities have failed,” correspondent Finkel wrote.
“Whereas four clerics from Pakistan attended this conference, the Afghan and Pakistani governments have tried and have not managed to organize a meeting of clerics since the beginning of the year.”