The National Chairman of the Izalla
sect, otherwise known as Jama’atul Izalatul Sunnah, Sheik Sani Yahaya
Jingir, has dissociated the sect from the activities of the dreaded
Islamic sect, Boko Haram, saying that the sect was being sponsored to
smear the Islamic religion.
He urged Muslims in the country to
continue to preach a just and egalitarian society and to pursue peaceful
coexistence that could move the country forward from its present
predicament.
Jingir, speaking to newsmen in Jos on
Sunday, described as unfortunate the inability of the government to
address the critical security problems confronting the country,
especially in the North-East.
He however expressed optimism that the activities of the sect would not affect the growth of democracy in the country.
Sheikh Jingir said that the destruction
being unleashed on the region by Boko Haram had taken the North
generally years back in terms of development.
“These security challenges in the
country and in the North-East in particular has left the zone as the
worse hit due to the current activities of Boko Haram and they are
sponsored to spoil the image of Islam.”
The Islamic cleric called on the Federal
Government and the state governments to, as a matter of urgency,
formulate effective policies to tackle the current insecurity in the
country and also deal with the debilitating poverty and the growing
number of unemployed youths in the region.
Sheik Jingir noted that Nigerians were
now under persecution in their own land and urged them not to be
discouraged by the shortcomings of the leadership in the area of
security.
He also expressed optimism that the
situation would soon be a thing of the past, stressing, “It will surely
be a history one day.”
Meanwhile, renowned Islamic scholar and
author, Abumazeedah AbdulRauf, has described members of the Boko Haram
Islamic sect as “misguided minds.”
According to him, there is the need for
Muslims to be sensitised to reading with a view to correcting the wrong
impression about western education.
But a lecturer in the Department of
Islamic Law at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Director in ABU’s
Institute of Administration, Prof. Mohammed Bello, said the belief that
western education is a taboo was western propaganda.
They both spoke in an interview with
journalists on Saturday in Abuja during the opening ceremony of the 4th
edition of a one-week Islamic Book Exhibition organised at the National
Mosque by a publishing firm, De Minaret International.
Abumazeedah, who is the Managing
Director/CEO of the company, said, “We want to mobilise Muslims and
sensitise them to the habit of reading because we believe that if today
everybody is campaigning for reading culture, we Muslims should be in
the forefront because our religion had started on the platform of
reading and this exhibition is even more important because it is coming
at a time when there is a very wrong impression of the religion.
“Prophet Muhammed never postulated
mathematical theory but those who came after him developed a technique
of mathematics and today, it is beneficial to the world. So, to assume
that western education is a sin is indeed a thought of the misguided
mind, it’s not part of Islamic thinking. And this is one of the points
that we are trying to prove here like I said earlier, through this
exhibition that Muslims are indeed, the custodians of knowledge.”
According to him, the exhibition is to
correct the erroneous impression that Islam is vehemently opposed to
education and knowledge.
“So we are organising this exhibition to
showcase the beauty of Islam. We are having more than 25,000
collections of Islamic titles here and the works that Muslim
intellectuals have done. When you see this, you will agree with me that
indeed, Islam is a religion of intellect, a religion of knowledge and
that is what we are trying to prove to the world.
“Islam does not distinguish between
education, there is no difference between Islamic and western education.
In the past, we have among our ancestors, Muslim intellectuals who were
basically mathematicians like Aljeberi, like Alberuni. These were
Muslims and they were mathematicians”, Abumazeedah added.