Rectors of Islamic Seminaries Gather in Chabahar

Chabahar – Iran (SunniOnline): Therectorsof Sunni Islamic seminariesin Sistan-Baluchistan gathered on Sunday 16thNov. 2014 in the southeastern city of Chabahar.

Thefirst meeting of the ‘Coordination Council of Sunni Seminaries in Sistan-Baluchistan’ in the current academic year was held by presence of chairmanof the council MawlanaAbdol-Hamid, Secretary General of the councilMawlana Mohammad YousufHussein-Pour and the rest of authorities and rectors.
The cultural- social deputy of the provincial representative of theSupremeLeader in Sistan-Baluchistan, Mr. Rahdari,also talked to the audience in the beginning. Then his colleague, Molawi Abdol-Ghani Dehani,the head of secretariat of Friday Imams at the provincial office of the Supreme Leader’s representative briefly said: “We are going to constitutein each city a council of scholars and Friday Imams that scrutinizes the request of every place over performing Friday prayers according to Hanafi jurisprudence; the council can approve or reject such requests.”
When the official team left the meeting, a PowerPoint file was presented to the audience by the host; the title of the article was “Excommunication and Violence Born of Ignorance and Intolerance” prepared by a university professor from Tehran. The author had put some groups among “Takfiri groups” such as Taliban,Al Qaeda, ISIL, Al-Nusra and Boko Haram as well as he recommended the scholars and intellectuals to declare them infidels and non-Muslims.
Mawlana Abdol-Hamid criticized the articleand stated,“It has some major problems; first, all groups introduced as excommunicating and Takfiri groups are not among excommunication groups such as Taliban.They don’t excommunicate Muslims. The second problem is that the author of this article himself is among excommunicatingelements; because he recommends Muslim scholars to inform people that they are infidels!”
Mawlana Maleki-Pour, Friday Imam of Konarak city, also remarked, “All groups which were introduced as excommunicating sides in the file belong to Sunni Muslims. While there are some Shia sides excommunicate others too; they have been forgotten in the file.”
The audience listened to the reports of the inspector of the Coordination Council of SunniSeminaries, Mawlana Mohammad Dehqan, and the secretary of the council for women’s seminaries, Molawi Mohammad Hussein Gorgij.
Mawlana Abdol-Hamid, chairman of the Coordination Council of Sunni Seminaries, shed light on the importance of educating women and said, “The purpose of educating women is not only to make them graduated, rather the main purpose is to make them pious.Thus we canreview in their curriculum and add some useful books of Hadith in theircurriculum.”

The rector of Darululoom Zahedan indicated to the issue of ‘independence of Islamic seminaries’ and went on to say,“Seminaries must maintain their independence. We oppose the plan called ‘ReorganizationAct of Sunnis’ Seminaries’; it is a kind of intervention in the internal affairs of seminaries.
At the end, Mawlana Hussein-Pour, the secretary general of the Coordination Council asked the audience to reconsider the process of organizing graduation ceremonies.He also said,“There are two years left until theend of the decade schedulesforrevising the textbooks of the council. The relevant committee should begin its studies from now.”