Maulana Mahmood Madani

Meerut: In the wake of BJP and Hindutva outfits raising the bogey of “Love Jihad” to polarize communities on communal lines, both Sunni and Shia clerics have come out openly to denounce the “false alarm”, and have said the theory has no sanctions in Islam.

“We are quite concerned at the manner in which the issue of ‘love jihad’ is being misused to disturb communal harmony. People with vested interests are exploiting it to pit one community against the other,” said Maulana Mahmood Madani, general secretary of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH).

He also urged Muslim youths to avoid getting into a situation that gave such parties an opportunity to “target” the entire community.

While the Sunni clerics from Darul Uloom Deoband said that it to be a illegal and illegitimate act to dupe women of other faiths to get them converted to Islam, Senior Shia cleric and All Indian Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) vice-president Maulana Kalbe Saadiq has said that Muslims involved in ‘love jihad’, should be ‘killed’.

“Jo musalman love jihad mein shamil hain, unhe maar dena chahiye”, he told reporters in Varanasi. The cleric said a “true Muslim” never got involved with “love jihad”. It is unclear, however, if Maulana Saadiq believes in the theory of “love jihad” as concepted by the Hindutva outfits.

Many BJP ministers and Hindutva outfits have raised the issue of “Love Jihad” – a concocted theory used by anti-Muslim groups, to make the majority community believe in the absurd notion, that there is an alleged Muslim strategy to convert Hindu women, though there never has been evidence to prove the same. In fact, when asked what BJP’s official stance on the theory is, BJP leader and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, feigned ignorance by replying, “What is Love Jihad? I don’t know. I have no idea.”