LUCKNOW: Sending out a word of caution to the Shia community against meddling with the issue of Triple Talaq, prominent Shia clerics advised the community to stay out of the matter as it was the practice followed by the majority Sunni sect.
“It is an ‘unislamic’ practice for Shias,” said Maulana Kalbe Jawad, general secretary of Majlis-e-Ulama-e-Hind, in Lucknow on Monday.
The Shia cleric was speaking at the general body meeting of Majlis-e-Ulama-e-Hind, a national level body of Shia clerics attended by members from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bengal, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Kargil, Lucknow and other parts of Uttar Pradesh.
“It is an oppressive practice which strips the Sunni women of their marital rights. So the initiative to resolve the issue should come from Sunni clerics,” the body said.
“Those going vocal over the issue are doing so owing to their political motives and to create a Shia-Sunni rift,” said Jawad. “We don’t have a right to force our opinion on the community when we have no stake in the issue, and for Shias the practice is any way illegitimate,” he added.
On the state government’s crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses in the state, Jawad blamed the previous Samajwadi Party government for not renewing licences on time and letting the illegal butcheries run without proper documents.
In an oblique reference to the Akhilesh government, Jawad said that those who used to claim themselves to be the ‘messiah of Muslims’ should be held responsible for the plight of meat traders and the overall chaos therein. He added that meat traders should be given time and opportunity by the present dispensation to update their documents.
While the Shia body favoured the settlement of the Babri issue through mutual dialogue as per the Supreme Court’s suggestion, it opined that the thought of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) was unrealistic in the Indian context as even a majority Hindus had region-specific customs and traditions which could not be brought under the single purview of UCC.
Shia leaders opposed cow vigilante groups vehemently and deplored high-handedness and hooliganism in the name of cow protection.