Pakistani mullahs issue fatwa: suicide bombing forbidden if carried out in a Muslim country.

Scholars condemn suicide bombings

Leading Islamic scholars in Pakistan have issued a decree against suicide attacks, describing them as forbidden if carried out in a Muslim country.

The decree has been authorised by 58 religious leaders, representing all schools of Islamic thought in Pakistan including the minority Shia community.

The move is an attempt to stop suicide bombers carrying out attacks on places of worship in Pakistan.

But the decree does not apply to bombings in Kashmir or Palestine.

Leading Islamic scholar Mufti Munib-ur-Rehman told the BBC the decree had been issued because attacks on places of worship in Pakistan have been blamed on suicide bombers in recent years.

He said that the proclamation did not apply to "ongoing struggles" in Kashmir and Palestine.

Mr Munib-ur-Rehman said that protecting life and property of non-Muslim citizens and foreigners visiting the country was the prime responsibility of a Muslim state.

Government 'sponsored'

He said that an act of terrorism - whether on an individual or collective level - was deplorable.

But, he said, the line of demarcation between terrorist activity and a freedom struggle has to be clearly defined.

However, the head of a well-known seminary for mainstream Sunni Muslims in Lahore, Sarfraz Naeemi refused to sign the decree.

He says it is a government-sponsored move which could be used by the United States to justify its propaganda against suicide attacks.

"There is a need to issue a decree against the Americans who have been slaughtering Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I have serious reservations about the present move," Mr Naeemi said in an interview with the BBC.

In Pakistan, public opinion on this issue is likely to be divided.

But many people are likely to regard the decree as part of the government's campaign to sell a soft image of the country to the West.