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Anti-Taliban cleric among four killed, 10 injured in a suicide attack in Lahore. The blast occurred right after the Friday prayers finished at the Jamia Naeemia mosque.

Prominent anti-Taliban Pakistani Muslim cleric Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi is pictured in this file photo taken in Lahore July 17, 2005. Naeemi was killed in the suicide bomb attack, police said. – Reuters

Suicide bomber kills anti-Taliban cleric Allama Naeemi

By Muhammad Faisal Ali

Pakistani Islamic students mourn over the body of Sarfraz Naeemi, the head of Jamia Naeemia madrassa at a hospital following a suicide bomb attack. – AFP

LAHORE: Allama Dr Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a renowned religious scholar of the country and principal of the Jamia Naeemia, was killed, in what police believe was a targeted suicide attack at his seminary’s office in Garhi Shaho on Friday.

His close aide, Maulana Khalilur Rehman, Abdul Rehman, an ex-student and a journalist, and two students were also killed while five others suffered injuries in the attack which destroyed furniture and religious books lying in the single room office and smashed all the windowpanes of madrassa-cum-mosque where over 1,000 students are receiving religious education.

A series of protests broke out outside Jamia Naeemia and other parts of the city following the attack on Mr Naeemi, who was the son of the ex-chairman of the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee and founder of Jamia Naeemia, Mufti Muhammad Husain Naeemi.

Capital City Police Officer Pervez Rathore said Dr Sarfraz had supported military action against Taliban militants and also issued a decree calling suicide attacks ‘Haram’ in Islam.

He told Dawn that Mr Naeemi had also arranged an Anti-Taliban seminar in his madrassa two weeks ago.

Senior Superintendent of Police (operations) Chaudhry Shafeeq believed Mr Naeemi was targeted by a suicide bomber, saying Mr Naeemi, however, did not inform the police about any immediate life threat to him.

‘We had asked him many times for the security but he did not accept it,’ he said.

The blast, which was carried out by a suicide bomber with approximately 12 kg explosives, shook students and staff present in the madrassa and residents of adjacent localities.

All adjacent markets and shops were closed following the incident and the police barricaded all roads leading to the Jamia Naeemia.Some rangers also patrolled the spot.The angry mob smashed in the windowpanes of the Alahsaan Welfare Trust ambulance.Ambulances of Rescue 1122 and Edhi rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to Mayo, Sir Ganga Ram Services and Jinnah Hospital.

Mr Naeemi, after Friday prayer, was sitting in his room to see visitors when a young man, thought to be in his 20s, entered from the main gate, turned left and detonated an explosive device after entering Mr Naeemi’s office, witnesses said.

Most of the people had left the madrassa cum mosque after Friday prayers, and only students were present in their rooms and in other premises when the blast took place.‘I had just started lunch after Friday prayer when an explosion took place and I initially thought that some structure had collapsed. I along other fellows came downstairs and saw smoke arising from the office of Mr Naeemi and screams,’ a student, who was in his room situated on the first floor, told Dawn.

He said he, along with others found Mr Naeemi with multiple injuries and shifted him to the nearby Railway Cairen Hospital.Police rounded up a few students and took them to an unidentified location for interrogation.Muhammad Ali Naqashbandi of Jamia Naeemia complained to the police took three students including Wajahat, son of Samiullah.

He said it had become police practice to pick up innocent people soon after any terrorist act in the name of security but not to act on intelligence in a timely manner.

A police official, however, said some people were detained who were found making videos of the spot.Meanwhile, the police seized the complete face and legs of the alleged suicide bomber, and shifted the remains to an undisclosed location for identification process.

A suspect identified as Shahbaz was also taken from the spot and was shifted to an unidentified location for interrogation.Civil Lines division SP Investigation Dr Hyder Ashraf told Dawn the bomber used a suicide belt which contained pellets, but that he was yet to be identified.The SP said the bomber could not enter into the madrassa during prayer timings because of security checking by four policemen and madrassa volunteers.

However, he said that as the police left the venue after the departure of people, the bomber made his entry and blew himself up.He said Mr Naeemi had recently refused to receive police guards when he was contacted for the purpose.

DAWN: Friday, 12 Jun, 2009

The Lahore blast and Taliban ideology

The fight against the Taliban on ideological battlegrounds poses a grave challenge,

Huma Yusuf.

Scan newspapers and blogs in recent months and you’ll see that the fight against the Taliban in north-west Pakistan has been framed as a ‘war against terror’ or an ‘information war’ over the ‘hearts and minds’ of residents of the Frontier province. Op-eds have argued that the Pakistan Army is fighting the Taliban to restore territorial integrity, safeguard human rights, ensure good governance and establish the writ of the Pakistani state. Books and articles point out that Taliban foot soldiers are young men, lured to militancy by hefty cash dole-outs in the absence of other job opportunities. Indeed, one aspect of the fight against the Taliban has almost been forgotten in recent months – its ideological underpinnings.

The suicide bombing at the Jamia Naeemia mosque in Lahore on Friday, in which the head cleric Dr Sarfraz Naeemi lost his life, is an urgent reminder that the fight against the Taliban is nothing less than a battle for the future of Islam and how the religion is to be practiced and interpreted in Pakistan.

Events in recent months – such as the fiasco of the passage of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation and increased focus on the Taliban’s funding sources – have made many Pakistanis cynical about their motives. In some quarters, the militants are viewed as money- and power-hungry warlords, hell-bent on claiming territory and control (and revelling in the wealth that Swat’s emerald mines have to offer). But Friday’s blast confirms that Pakistan’s militants are primarily on a broad ideological mission to impose, consolidate and spread their preferred interpretation of Islam.

Dr. Naeemi was not targeted by suicide bombers because he could offer them cash, territory, new recruits, communications technology or weapons. He was targeted because he opposed the Taliban ideology, consistently and brazenly. Earlier this month, he led a rally in Lahore condemning the Taliban. Members of two dozen parties comprising a Sunni alliance known as Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat Mahaz gathered behind Dr. Naeemi as he criticised the Taliban, demanded the eradication of militancy and expressed vociferous support for the military operation in Swat.

For opposing the Taliban ideology – and having the clerical clout that makes his opposition significant – Dr. Naeemi was killed by a suicide bomber in his own office on the premises of the Jamia Naeemi mosque.

He isn’t the first cleric who shuns extremist Islamic views to be assassinated, and he won’t be the last. In fact, the practice of targeting influential clerics with contradicting ideas has been flourishing among Afghan Taliban for several years now. Clerics of the Ulema Shura, a body comprising two thousand religious leaders that opposed the Taliban ‘jihad’, were regularly killed by militants in Afghanistan. Their support for Hamid Karzai’s government and a softer interpretation of Islam ‘displeased’ Taliban commanders who would ‘kill them’ to ‘obtain silence’.

For good or for bad, it’s time Pakistanis realised that once the dust settles in the wake of the Rah-e-Rast operation, the war against the Taliban will continue on ideological battlegrounds. And Friday’s blast reaffirms that these are not metaphorical battlegrounds, confined to the column inches of scholarly journals or the lecture halls of universities. These battlegrounds will take the form of mosques and madrassahs. They have already taken the form of Sufi shrines.

Recently, analysts have criticised the fact that politicians and political parties defer to religious councils to support their secular stance against the Taliban. For example, the MQM, despite its secular credentials, convened an ulema convention to speak out against Taliban infiltration. Similarly, the Pakistan government recently created a seven-member Sufi Advisory Council aimed at combating Talibanisation by spreading Sufi teachings instead. These efforts have been maligned because they “add yet another layer of religious governance to a country wracked by religious conflict” and further entangle religion and the state.

No doubt, having the Pakistan government champion and concretise one interpretation of Islam as the ‘correct’ one in an effort to stamp out extremist interpretations is a dangerous idea. But those who genuinely want to see the eradication of the Pakistani Taliban – liberals, moderates, and those who advocate for the separation of the church and state included – cannot now shy away from an ideological battle.

It is increasingly apparent that the struggle for a Pakistan free of militancy is conflated with a struggle over the soul of Islam. For that reason, in addition to military operations that target Taliban methodology (bombings, attacks, killings), the government – and the people of Pakistan – will have to jointly engage in ijtehad to devise a way to quash Taliban ideology.

Dawn:12-06-2009

Security officials and rescuers gather at the Jamia Naeemia madrassa, an Islamic seminary and mosque, after a suicide bomb attack in Lahore. — AFP

A humble and moderate scholar

By: Iqtidar Gilani

LAHORE - Allama Dr Sarfraz Ahmad Naeemi Al-Azhari was a humble, moderate and widely respected religious scholar. He has left behind one son and five daughters. 
The slain leader never directly joined politics but he had strong inclination towards PML-N Quaid Mian Nawaz Shairf and for this reason had been opposed to Pervez Musharraf, who had ousted Nawaz-led government. 
Dr Sarfraz Naeemi was a notable person who never had any ambition to secure any benefit for himself as scholars much junior to him-both in knowledge and age-were enjoying ride in luxury jeeps while the deceased was often seen riding his old motorbike on the city roads.
He got his early education from Jamia Naeemia for which he was serving as Nazim-e-Aala at the time of his martyrdom. 
He did his PhD from the Punjab University and soon completed a short course from Jamia Al-Azhar, a renowned university of Egypt. 
He assumed the charge of Jamia Naeemia after the death of his father Mufti Muhammad Hussain Naeemi. Over 1,400 students are presently studying at this institution that also has its five branches. He was also serving as Nazim-e-Aala of an organisation managing over 6,000 madrassa of Ahle Sunnah school of thought. He also introduced information technology for the first time for students of Jamia Naeemia. 
Dr Naeemi was selfless, a true patriot and a simple man who never cared about protocol or security. Even recently after getting threats from the extremists, traveling on motorbike without proper security was his routine. 
Following demolition of shrines of Sufis by Taliban in tribal areas, he made an anti-Taliban alliance comprising 21 religious parties from Ahle Sunnah school of thought. The alliance organised countrywide ‘Save Pakistan Conventions’ and ‘Go Taliban Go Rallies’ to give vent to the anger against the extremists. The alliance openly supported military operation and demanded of the government to continue it till complete elimination of the menace of Taliban. 
Terming Taliban as a ‘black mark on Islam’, he vowed to give full support to the government in the operation against the extremists. He also issued religious edict (fatwa) against suicide attacks, terming them against the spirit of Islam. According to the Ahle Sunnah Ulema, anti-Taliban stance of Dr Naeemi and open support to the government in Swat military operation enraged extremists who resorted to the step of carrying out suicide attack against him.

The Nation:June 13, 2009