Prominent representatives of the Shia sect of Muslims here Wednesday rejected Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) chief Ashok Singhal’s offer to hold talks on the Ayodhya issue.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued earlier during the day in Mumbai, Singhal had said that since the high court had dismissed the Sunni Waqf Board’s suit staking a claim to the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land in Ayodhya, the VHP would now hold talks with Shia organizations.<\/p>\n
The VHP supremo said: ‘Mughal emperor Babar’s army commander Mir Baqi, who built the Babri Masjid was a Shia, therefore we have decided to hold talks with representatives of the community.’<\/p>\n
Reacting sharply to Singhal’s statement, widely acclaimed Shia scholar and cleric Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, who was also senior vice president of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, said: ‘We are not interested in any move initiated by Singhal, who only believed in playing the politics of hatred.’<\/p>\n
He said: ‘It is quite apparent that after failing to forge a divide between Hindus and Muslims, the VHP was now trying to incite a confrontation between Shias and Sunnis; but we will not play into their hands.’<\/p>\n
Expressing similar views, another well-known Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad said: ‘There was absolutely no logic in Singhal’s explanations, which were clearly aimed at bringing Shias at loggerheads with Sunnis.’<\/p>\n
‘A mosque is a place of worship which cannot be restricted to a particular sect of Muslims,’ he said.<\/p>\n
Maulana Mohammad Athar, who heads the All India Shia Muslim Personal Law Board, also flayed Singhal for his remarks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prominent representatives of the Shia sect of Muslims here Wednesday rejected Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) chief Ashok Singhal’s offer to hold talks on the Ayodhya issue. In a statement issued earlier during the day in Mumbai, Singhal had said that since the high court had dismissed the Sunni Waqf Board’s suit staking a claim to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1094,1320,1322,422,1287,1321],"class_list":["post-6942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-law-news","tag-ayodhya","tag-leaders","tag-proposal","tag-reject","tag-shia","tag-vhp"],"yoast_head":"\n