Source: Global Christian News via Barnabas Fund, February 8, 2018<\/p>\n
The Pakistan government has unveiled a historic fatwa<\/a> (religious ruling) condemning Islamic extremism and vigilante \u201cblasphemy\u201d attacks, in a potentially positive development for the country\u2019s minority Christian community.<\/p>\n By issuing the fatwa with the support of 1,829 religious leaders\u2014who are signatories to the document officially released on January 16\u2014the Pakistani government is addressing extremism from a religious perspective.<\/p>\n The fatwa declares that terrorist activity against the state, and in particular suicide bombings, are\u00a0haram (forbidden under Islamic law). It also states: \u201cWe believe that spreading sectarian hatred, armed sectarian conflict and imposition of one\u2019s religious ideologies by force are contrary to the Shariah\/teachings of Islam,\u201d adding that there is a \u201creligious obligation\u201d to confront \u201cevil\u201d extremist ideology.<\/p>\n It should be noted however that \u201cextremism\u201d in the context of the ruling is defined as views deemed to be outside the body of mainstream Islam\u2014this differs from typical Western definitions, which define \u201cextremism\u201d in relation to issues such as democracy, human rights, and freedom of religion.<\/p>\n The document also says it is \u201cunacceptable in Islam\u201d that any group \u201ctakes [the] law into its own hands, [and] declares people infidels\u201d \u2014a statement which is understood to refer to the country\u2019s controversial \u201cblasphemy\u201d laws. Instead, the fatwa asserts that \u201conly the State has the right to implement punishments on citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb See also Ahmed\u2019s Lawyer Beaten During Blasphemy Trial<\/a> (Mission Network News). Wondering about China\u2019s changing religious policies? Get some clues and links in Religious Regulations and the Cross<\/a> (China Source).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Global Christian News via Barnabas Fund, February 8, 2018 The Pakistan government has unveiled a historic fatwa (religious ruling) condemning Islamic extremism and vigilante \u201cblasphemy\u201d attacks, in a potentially positive development for the country\u2019s minority Christian community. By issuing the fatwa with the support of 1,829 religious leaders\u2014who are signatories to the document officially … Continue reading PAKISTAN: Historic Fatwa Condemns Blasphemy Attacks<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7706,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions\/7706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}