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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Holy Quran lit on Fire: PM Imran directs Foreign Ministry to contact OIC

Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the Foreign Ministry to contact the OIC and urged them to take the intolerable incident at the international stage. Will it be effective to sensitize the world about the holy book?

The government has decided to approach the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) against the desecration of the Holy Quran in Norway. The decision was expected and due in this regard.

This was decided in the meeting of the core committee of ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) in the federal capital on Sunday to analyze the political and economic situation of the country.

The premier directed Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to write to OIC to highlight the issue at the international forum. He said that such activities against Islam will not be tolerated by the entire Muslim community.

It is pertinent to mention here that on Friday, a man named Lars Thorsen, who belonged to an anti-Islamic group “Stop the Islamisation of Norway” (SIAN), attempted to burn the Holy Quran in the Muslim-majority Norwegian city of Kristiansand, but was stopped by a man who jumped into the barricaded circle to save the holy book from being desecrated and launched kicks at the SIAN member. However, the scuffle was soon interrupted by the police took the two into custody.

Inter-Services Public Relations Director-General Major General Asif Ghafoor, through his personal account, saluted the bravery of Ilyas for jumping through the fence and saving the Holy Quran from burning.

Read more: Holy Quran Lit on Fire: Police Arrested Muslim Men Who Jumped & Beat Up Racist

Asif Ghafoor tweeted “Salute to brave Ilyas for displaying courage to stop an absolutely deplorable action. Such Islamophobia based provocations only promote hatred & extremism.”

DG ISPR further added “All religions are and must stay respectable. Islamophobia is a threat to global peace and harmony.”

Turkey also condemned the act and urged the authorities to bring the culprits before the law. “We strongly condemn the disrespect for our holy book, the Holy Quran, in a demonstration organized by an anti-Islamic organization on 16 November 2019 in Kristiansand, Norway,” read a statement from the Turkish foreign ministry. “We expect that such actions to be prevented and those who are responsible to be brought to justice as soon as possible.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Efforts to Counter Islamophobia

In a latest and rather surprising move, Prime Minister Imran Khan, along with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Malaysian counterpart Mahathir Mohamad has agreed to jointly counter anti-Islam forces. Three leaders reportedly took part in a trilateral summit on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the beginning of this year where they agreed on possible measures to counter Islamophobia.

PM also announced on his Twitter handle that a TV channel was going to be launched by these three countries. “President Erdogan, PM Mahatir and myself had a meeting today in which we decided our 3 countries would jointly start an English language channel dedicated to confronting the challenges posed by Islamophobia and setting the record straight on our great religion – Islam.”

He further noted that “Misperceptions which bring people together against Muslims would be corrected; the issue of blasphemy would be properly contextualized; series & films would be produced on Muslim history to educate/inform our own people & the world; Muslims would be given a dedicated media presence.”

It is important to note that since the end of the 20th century there have been deliberate efforts by the western media and scholars to present a violent image of Islam. In this regard, Edward Said wrote an insightful book titled ‘Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World‘ and presented a factual analysis of the situation. He outlined how the western media deliberately initiated a war against imagined violent Islam.

Read more: Putin Quotes Holy Quran to Urge for Peace in Yemen: “You Became Brothers by his Favor”

The leading newspapers in the United States in the 1990s published countless anti-Islam articles. In 1996 an article titled Seeing Green; The Red Menace Is Gone. But Here’s Islam was carried out by the New York Times which cultivated hatred against Islam by dividing people between Us vs. Them. The campaign against Islam resulted in what now the Western Media terms as “hate crimes”. The white supremacists do not want Muslims to be there at any cost. Now it is questioning the order within developed societies e.g. the USA, UK, and Australia.