LAHORE: Islamic scholars belonging to different schools of thought have strongly criticised the verdict delivered by a special court in the high treason case against former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf.
The verdict, which was delivered by a three-member bench headed by Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Waqar Ahmed Seth in addition to awarding the death penalty to the former president had called for his corpse to be hanged in public at Islamabad’s D-Chowk for three days if he were found dead before being arrested.
In response, several religious scholars termed the verdict un-Islamic and issued edicts against the special court’s judges.
Sajada Nasheen of the shrine of Hazrat Data Ali Hajveri Ganj Bukhsh, Mian Ejaz Ahmed Hajveri, in an edict issued on Friday said that the judges, by calling for the former president’s corpse to be hanged for public display, had acted clearly in violation of Quranic law which forbade any such punishment.
The edict quoted Surah Bani Israel of the Holy Quran which prohibits the desecration of a human corpse as a means of punishment.
Similar views were echoed in the edict issued by Darul Iftaul Qaza which also quoted verses from the Surah and called for the judges of the special court to be held for contempt of Sharia.
Chairman of Darul Iftaul Qaza, Allama Hussain Akbar said that Islam accords more respect to a dead body than it does to a living person and anyone calling for the desecration of a corpse should not be allowed to occupy judicial office.
Renowned religious scholar and founder of Karachi’s Jamia Binoria, Mufti Naeem also noted that the verdict does not comply with Sharia as Islam does not allow for a corpse to be treated with contempt.
In a statement issued by Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC), its chairman Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi had also condemned the verdict saying that there was no precedent in Shariah for such a punishment.
