Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi on Sunday fired another salvo on Islamic extremism by saying that Muslims who keep beard without moustache are fundamentalist. Rizvi went on to say that Muslims who don’t keep moustache with beard can be found promoting terrorism. The Sunni Wahabi muslims known in India as Deobandi are known for having beard without moustache.
“Keeping beard is `Sunnat (body of traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community). However, keeping beard without moustache is against Sunnat as the person looks fearful. Muslims with beard and no moustache are fundamentalists. Such people can be seen promoting terrorism across the world,” Rizvi said in a statement here on Sunday.
The Shia Waqf Board chairman also slammed Islamic outfits for issuing fatwa’s by interfering in personal lives of others. “We have few Muslims, who issue fatwa by interfering in the personal life of others. They forget that Islam has nothing to do with this. Those who issue fatwa in such cases should be booked as traitors because nobody has the right to challenge the secular Constitutional political order of India by proclaiming their own laws in the cover of religion.
“Some Muslims in India are getting influenced by the terrorist activities of ISIS in Jammu and Kashmir. This is not good. This can lead to violence in the country. It’s important to take strict actions against such Muslims,” Rizvi, who was recently accorded Y plus security cover by the UP government.
This is not the first time Rizvi has made controversial statement. Recently, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking closure of madrassas in the country alleging that education imparted in these Islamic schools encouraged students to join terror outfits. He had also triggered huge controversy by asking the muslims to drop their claim on the disputed site at Ayodhya and demanded the construction of the gr5and Ram temple where Babri stood till it was demolished on December 6, 1992.