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Nigeria’s basanjo speaks to a man injured during religious rioting in a hospital in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna
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Additional
Reporting By Khedr Abdul-Baki Mohammad
ABUJA
, November 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) -
Nigeria
's top Muslim body said Thursday, November 29, that a "fatwa"
calling for the death of a journalist who slandered Prophet Muhammad
(Peace and prayers be upon him) should be ignored.
General
Secretary Lateef Adegbite of the Supreme Islamic Council of Nigeria
said a call from the
Zamfara
State
government for the female writer to be slain "should not be
followed."
"I
read the article as well as the apologies published in the paper and
it is enough to forgive the writer," he added.
ThisDay
had retracted the offending article and published apologies and the
chairman of the group that owns the Lagos-based paper suggested that a
computer glitch could have been to blame for the fact that the story
went to press in the first place.
Following
the riots that erupted, the government appealed for calm and assured
Muslims that those responsible for the article would be brought to
book, for exceeding the bounds of responsible journalism.
The
36 members of the Fatwa committee in the council warned against
individual efforts to issue such important fatwas which can lead to
public unrest, he said, adding that the scholars demanded an immediate
stop to issuing fatwas individually.
"We
don't think that this state has the right to make such
pronouncements," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) by telephone.
Adegbite
said that the Supreme Islamic Council had "fully accepted" ThisDay's
apology and asked that Muslims forgive Daniel for her offensive story.
"We
are surprised that she fled the country," he said. "She is
welcome to return."
The
Muslim leader also said that the council would contact the
Zamfara
State
government to ask them to lift their death sentence, which is said was
a breach of
Nigeria
's constitution.
"It
has always been our position that Sharia [Islamic law] cannot be
extended to non-Muslims," Adegbite said. "If she [Daniel]
has committed a crime she should be prosecuted by the federal
government or the
Lagos
State
government under general law."
He
said that Zamfara, one of 12 mainly Muslim states in northern
Nigeria
to have readopted Sharia law since 1999, had no right to impose
"extra-territorial" judgments.
"There
should have been excessive consultations and discussions between
scholars from all states before such agitating fatwa is issued,"
Sheikh Ali Al-Kafi from
Kaduna
told IslamOnline.
The
deep tensions between
Nigeria
's Muslim and Christian communities – each representing about half
of the country's 120 million population – erupted once more last
week.
More
than 220 people were killed and 30,000 driven from their homes in the
northern city of
Kaduna
after a protest over an irresponsible newspaper report triggered three
days of sectarian riots.
Amid
a storm of negative publicity, Miss World organizers abandoned plans
to hold the show's closing ceremony in the Nigerian capital
Lagos
, and shifted it to
London
.
But
in
Nigeria
, the controversy raged on.
On
Tuesday, Mamuda Shinkafi, deputy governor of the northern state of
Zamfara, announced a "fatwa" or Islamic legal ruling calling
for ThisDay fashion writer Isioma Daniel to be killed for
slandering Prophet Muhammad (Peace and prayers be upon him) by saying
he would have enjoyed the show.
The
call was immediately condemned by
Nigeria
's federal government, which does not recognize the Islamic Sharia law
code recently reintroduced in Zamfara and 11 more mainly Muslim
states.
Christian
leaders called on the government to defend
Nigeria
's secular constitution.
They
also said that Christians are ready to react violently.
Nigeria's
Christian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, publically supports the right
of the 12 mainly Muslim northern states to reintroduce Sharia, arguing
that forcing his diverse country to obey one law code would trigger
rebellions that could destroy it.
