The Allahabad High Court recently denied anticipatory bail to a Muslim scholar accused of issuing a fatwa to kill Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi formerly known as Waseem Rizvi.
An FIR had been registered by Tyagi on March 18 this year alleging that Maulana Syed Mohammad Shabibul Husaini had given a statement on a channel on YouTube that Tyagi’s killing is desirable while referring to the fatwa issued against the author Salman Rushdie.
Tyagi had alleged that since he had changed his religion and accepted Sanatan Dharma, he had been repetitively getting threats of life, and after the aforesaid video was uploaded on YouTube, he was again being threatened.
Seeking a pre-arrest bail, the counsel for Maulana Husaini submitted that he is a scholar of the Shia community only concerned with academics.
The counsel contended that the interview in question was taken when Husaini was returning after finishing academic activities in New Delhi and he had replied to certain questions asked by a journalist regarding Tyagi.
The counsel stressed that the Maulana had not issued a fatwa as he has no authority to do so rather he had merely answered some questions in light ‘the provisions/sermon of the Holy Quran and Islamic jurisprudence’.
The court took note of the transcript of Maulana Husaini’s interview held on YouTube. It further observed that the meaning and purport of the interview was that Islam has supremacy over all, and it is a religion, which does not tolerate, nor accept.
The court pointed out that as per the transcript of Maulana Husaini’s interview, he had stated that the punishment for Murtad Fitri (one who despite being born to Muslim parents, rebels against Islam and becomes a Kafir) is only murder and no-one has the right to forgive him.
Further, the court highlighted that in the interview, Maulana Husaini had also reinforced his stand with the fatwa issued by Imam Khomeini to kill author Rushdie.
He justified the murder of Wasim Rizvi since he was a Muslim but adopted the Kufr (not believing in Allah), the court stated.
Moreover, the court expressed concern over the fact that in the affidavit, Maulana Husaini had tried to justify his statements made in the interview.
“…the applicant has justified his statements and has stated on oath that ‘he had given the statement according to Islamic Jurisprudence (Shia-Jafri) based on many books, wherein it is written that according to Jafri or Imami school, the male apostates must be executed, while female apostates must be held in solitary confinement until they repent and return to Islam. Apostasy from Islam is considered a crime,” noted the court.
Importantly, the court pointed out that though it had been claimed by Maulana Husaini that he had only referred to the provisions/sermon of the Holy Quran and Islamic jurisprudence, he did not refer to a single verse specifically.
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