State owns authority to declare Jihad, says Al-Azhar grand Mufti

KABUL, a media report said on Wednesday.

Referring to militant leaders with religious linkages, he said, “Similarly we need to counter the mindset which does not believe in boundaries of the states.”

According to Dawn.com, the grand Mufti of Al-Azhar said that only grand muftis were authorised to issue decrees and not semi-literate clerics who issued decrees after reading a few books being “holed up in caves”.

He said extremism led to terrorism, blasphemy and declaring any Muslim a non-believer were prohibited in Islam.

“Groups like Daesh (the militant Islamic State) have strayed away from the message of Islam but they are targeting Muslim youths through social media,” Dr Ibrahim said during a religious huddle in Pakistan.

He said that Egypt, too, was formulating a national narrative on similar lines and the document would be signed by mainstream clerics.

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