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Muslim personal law board warns against imposing common law

All India Muslim Personal Law Board president Maulana Syed Abul Hassan Ali Nadvi alias Ali Mian today said democracy, secularism and the practice of non-violence were essential for the survival of a country like India.

Maulana Ali Mian, who attended the Personal Law Board meeting in Delhi and the Delhi Talimi Council convention at Aligarh recently, told reporters in Lucknow that attempts to enforce contentious issues like uniform civil code would lead the country nowhere.

Deploring the fact that India was losing tolerance, an important ingredient of her culture, the maulana said Muslims had no differences with the Bharatiya Janata Party or for that matter any party. It would be for the good of the country if the BJP followed the spirit of the Constitution and the ancient ethos of mutual respect, tolerance and respect for all religions.

The Islamic scholar said it was not good on the part of the Uttar Pradesh government to change the secular curriculum of schools. The Constitution guaranteed certain freedoms to the minorities, which should be accepted by everyone.

Maulana Ali Mian said the executive meeting of the Muslim Personal Law Board has decided to launch a nationwide campaign for creating an awakening about personal laws, as these rules related to the practice followed by the people and did not harm society or the country.

Muslim personal law was an integral part of faith and religion, Muslims were bound to live in conformity with the Sharia, and any attempt to abrogate, alter or change the personal law was bound to create tension in society.

Regarding the Babri Masjid, he said the AIMPLB was firm in its stand that a decision on the cases pending in the Allahabad high court should be expedited.

Any out-of-court solution will be meaningless at this stage, he added.

The Personal Law Board also discussed various programmes in the changed political scenario. The meeting was attended by among others, Maulana Syed Nizamuddin, general secretary of the AIMPLB, Maulana Mujahid-ul-Isslam Qasmi, Maulana Jalaluddin Umri, Maulana Abdul Kareem Parikh, Abdul Sattar Yusuf Shaikh, Ibrahim Sulaiman Sait, Syed Shahabuddin, Maulana Burhanuddin Sambhali, Maulana Shafi Munis, Zafaryab Jilani, eminent lawyer Yusuf Muchchala, Maulana Abdul Rabey Tasni Nadvi and Abdul Rahim Qureshi.

UNI

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