While prominent Shia clerics in Uttar Pradesh have denounced Islamic evangelist Zakir Naik and demanded a ban on his teachings, claiming they incited terrorism, the jury is still out among Sunni scholars.
The Deobandi and Barelvi sub-sects of Sunni Islam acknowledged their ideological differences with Dr. Naik, who is regarded as an exponent of the Wahabi-Salafi thought. However, there was no single response to his alleged controversial statements defending terrorism. While the Deoband school said Dr. Naik had nothing to do with terrorism, the Barelvis preferred to wait for the investigations to clear the air.
The Darul Uloom Deoband, based in Saharanpur, said it had always opposed Dr. Naik’s “perspective,” and teachings.
The school, however, clarified that the fatwas issued by it against Dr. Naik, primarily on his deviant teachings, should not be used as a “weapon and tool” to target him and link him to terrorism. “We are not against him personally… We object to the media’s use of our fatwas as a weapon against him,” said Ashraf Usmani, spokesperson of the seminary.
“We strongly condemn the way he is being targeted and linked to terrorism, and the media trial,” he told The Hindu .
Barelvi denies linksThe other prominent Sunni sect, the Barelvi, also underlined its disapproval of Dr. Naik’s speeches. Raising the point that in one of his speeches, he had “somewhere supported terrorism,” Tauqueer Raza Khan, the most prominent face of the Barelvi sect, said, “We don’t have links with him. But to falsely implicate somebody in terrorism is also wrong. Nobody who calls himself a Muslim in India can have anything to do with terrorism,” he said.
Meanwhile the ‘Shia National Front’ has written to Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanding a CBI probe into Naik’s activities.
