Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs on Saturday assured the Wolesi Jirga of establishing Dar-ul-Ifta (house of religious rulings) to provide guiding in matters related to religion.
Summoned by the lawmakers over Farkhunda’s lynching case, Faiz Muhammad Usmani said that Dar-ul-Ifta would be established with cooperation of the Muslim states. He said the Dar-ul-Ifta would facilitate greater understanding of the percepts of Islam and would serve as a platform where people could voice their questions regarding religious issues to get answers.
The minister said that important religious issues would be referred to the center. Around 30,000 scholars will be trained in United Arab Emirates (UAE) for this purpose.
And also the HRA is in contact with some of Islamic countries for capacity building of some of young scholars for the masjids, said Usmani adding and establishing a radio in near future is also for Islamic instructions to the public is also part of the program.
Regarding prayers and Friday sermons fixing at the same time, Usmani said the ministry is working to appoint prominent scholars as imams.
Providing details about the Farkhunda case, a 27-year old girl who was killed and later burnt by a mob in Shah-e-do-Shamshira area in Kabul after accused of burning the Holy Quran, the minister said that Farkhunda was innocent and the killers are behind bars.
He said the Attorney General Office (AGO) is prosecuting the case. Lack of support on part of imams was the major reason that he held responsible for the problem. The minister added that imams of 3,700 registered masjids receive around Afs4,000 as salary per month.
“Many imams could not say facts due to threats. Poor knowledge about the religion is another reason. Only nine imams have PhDs, 54 have master degrees, while 778 imams are graduates and 3,678 others have higher secondary school certificates and 3,678 have private education. Some others are the Darul-hefaz graduates,” he said.
There are 160,000 mosques in the country but most are unregistered.
The Ministry of Interior on Saturday in a media statement said that it has dispatched the cases of 28 suspects, involved in killing and burning of Farkhunda, to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).
