Secretary of Federation of Religious Seminaries (Wifaq-ul-Madaris) Qari Hanif Jhulandari has said the global Islamic awakening was different from terrorism and it was in no way a threat to international peace.
Talking to newsmen before leaving for China, Hong Kong, Bangkok and other countries, he ruled out the possibility of US attack on Iran and said that deep and abiding friendship between Pakistan and Iran is based on shared history, culture, civilisations, religion and geographical contiguity.
He said Pakistan and Iran enjoyed extensive co-operation in the domains of politics, economy and border security. He pointed to the IPI gas pipeline project as an important indicator of the good relations between Iran and Pakistan in particular.
He made it clear, "we are neither extremists nor conservative nor fundamentalists but we are the people having realistic approach. We oppose tyranny, exploitation, aggression, and other power-evils."
Moving on to the issues of concern with regard to the regional scenario, he said that the Islamic revolution of 1979 was an important event whose significance lay in the fact that it was not patterned on any other revolution in the world and was unique in character. He said that clearly the war had been a reaction to the revolution in Iran and had proven unsuccessful for Iraq, which was visible in the valiant resistance.
He said that the qualitative change in the character of Palestinian resistance against Israel was another significant development in the region. Forty years ago Palestinian resistance had Arabic overtones but with the passage of time he explained that the resistance had assumed a more Islamic character.
He said that this change was also apparent in the 30-day resistance that the Lebanese group, Hezbollah put up before Israel in 2006. He said that a major change had also taken place in the ties between Islam and the West with the relations becoming more complicated and strained.
He argued that the expression of "terrorism" had become very prevalent in the relations between the Islamic world and the West. He described the region as a melting pot and said that the presence of foreign military forces in the region and the very accelerated pace of developments had become a source of concern for everyone.