ISLAMABAD: Hardline cleric Sufi Muhammad, who played a key role in enforcing Islamic law in Pakistan's restive northwestern Swat valley, on Sunday said there is no room for democracy in Islam and it contravenes the Quran.
Addressing a gathering of thousands of people at Mingora, the main city in Swat district, the chief of the banned Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Muhammadi (TNSM) described democracy as an un-Islamic system.
The existing political system in the country contravenes Islam and the Quran, he claimed.
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Asserting that there is no room for democracy in an Islamic system, he accused Pakistan's rulers of appeasing the West by thrusting the system of 'kafirs' or infidels on the people of the country.
Muhammad said many years of struggle for implementing Shariah or Islamic law in Malakand division, which includes Swat, were now bearing results. He claimed all un-Islamic laws will soon be abolished in Malakand.
The radical cleric, who set up Qazi or Islamic courts in Swat even before President Asif Ali Zardari ratified a controversial law to enforce Shariah in the region, said no appeal could be made against a decision by a Qazi court in civil courts. Such decision could be appealed only in Darul Qaza, or superior courts in the Shariah system, he added. |