The biggest challenge before Muslim scholars and Ulema in contemporary times is to “refute the malicious propaganda being churned out by international conspiratorial forces to malign Islam by projecting it as a violent and regressive faith”, former J&K Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Monday.He was addressing a three-day International Conference on ‘Modern Technology and Muslims’ at Silchar in Barak Valley of Assam. The Conference was organized jointly by NadwatutTameer, Jamiat-ul-Ullema-e-Hind, Assam &Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat.
Azad, who was the Chief Guest at the concluding ceremony, said the Muslim world is “at a crossroads as it is being viewed as synonymous with violence, extremism and terror.”
In this scenario, he said, the role and responsibility of religious scholars to “dispel such wrong perception becomes more demanding and pronounced.”
Referring to the “conspiracies being hatched across the world to malign and tarnish the image of Muslims”, Azad exuded confidence that Muslim scholars (Ulema) will “formulate appropriate, practical and workable strategies to dispel the wrong perception about Islam.”
“History is witness to the fact that deliberate attempts are made by conspiratorial forces to pit one Muslim country against another, one sect against another, to perpetrate disturbance in the Muslim world and tarnish the image of Islam,” he said. “There is a need to guard against such malicious attempts with maturity, wisdom and foresight.”
Beseeching the learned scholars and luminaries to “play their role in steering the community out of chaos and morass”, Azad urged them to “project the true and correct picture of Islam fearlessly and valiantly as has been done in the past.”
He said that Islamic history “amply demonstrates that Muslim scholars, without getting cowed down by the forces of tyranny, have never allowed anybody to exploit the name of Islam to perpetrate mindless violence and propagate terror.”
“The core message of Islam has been peace, compassion, equality, education and humanism,” he said.
He called upon the Muslim scholars to persuade and motivate youngsters of the community to spend their energies in educational pursuits and infuse in them the spirit of patriotism, scientific enquiry and humanism.
