Russia’s senior Islamic clerics warned the country’s leaders on Friday that unrest could erupt in Russian Muslim communities and beyond if a court decision ordering the destruction of an interpretive translation of the Holy Quran is not overturned.
On Tuesday, a court in Novorossiysk, a city in southern Russia, outlawed the widely read text under a Russian anti-extremism law that rights activists say has been abused by local officials out of prejudice or to persecute groups frowned upon by the dominant Russian Orthodox Church.
The rights campaigners said the decision, which will apply nationwide unless it is overturned on appeal, comes dangerously close to banning the Quran itself.
Russia's Council of Muftis sounded the alarm in an open letter on Friday to President Vladimir Putin, who has frequently called for unity among the leading faiths, and warned that ethnic tension could tear Russia apart.
“Russian Muslims are indignant over the decision,” said the council’s deputy head Rushan Abbyasov, adding that if the ruling was acted upon, there would be unrest all over the world.
In the letter to Putin, the council drew a parallel with violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the actions of American pastor Terry Jones who threatened to burn the Quran on September 11, 2010.
“Is it necessary to discuss how the destruction of books, especially sacred religious books, has been received in Russia in the past?” it said.
 |
| The Holy Qur'an (image: al-quraninstitute.co.uk) |
The rights campaigners said the decision, which will apply nationwide unless it is overturned on appeal, comes dangerously close to banning the Quran itself.
Russia's Council of Muftis sounded the alarm in an open letter on Friday to President Vladimir Putin, who has frequently called for unity among the leading faiths, and warned that ethnic tension could tear Russia apart.
“Russian Muslims are indignant over the decision,” said the council’s deputy head Rushan Abbyasov, adding that if the ruling was acted upon, there would be unrest all over the world.
In the letter to Putin, the council drew a parallel with violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the actions of American pastor Terry Jones who threatened to burn the Quran on September 11, 2010.
“Is it necessary to discuss how the destruction of books, especially sacred religious books, has been received in Russia in the past?” it said.
A lawyer representing the text’s author, theologian Elmir Kuliyev, said he would appeal the ruling, which calls for the text to be banned and its copies “destroyed”.
Lawyer Murat Musayev, who has a month to file an appeal, said that a local prosecutor sent the material to a local court and together they decided to ban the holy book.
“On one hand there is freedom of religion in Russia, on the other they are banning fundamental religious texts,” he said.
Experts say the translation by Kuliyev, which is more than a decade old, is a respected scholarly work and one of the four translations of the Quran into Russian.
Russian Academy of Science Islamic expert Akhmed Yarlikapov termed the decision “unprofessional” and said it was “one step away from banning the Quran”.
“You could ban the Bible just as easily because it also has passages that talk about the spilling of blood,” he said.
Mecca Time
Bergen Time
Auckland
0 comments:
Post a Comment