Afghan Clerics Want Power To Issue Legally Binding Fatwas

Afghanistan is fast on it's way to a total Sharia takeover.  Hamid Karzai will cut deals with the Islamists right up til NATO leaves and then he will either be killed or flee the country.

FROM RFERL.ORG:

Afghan Clerics Want Power To Issue Legally Binding Fatwas

By Ron Synovitz and Ahmad Shebar

November 28, 2012

Islamic clerics on Afghanistan's Ulema Council are the country's religious authorities, but their opinions on questions of Islamic law are treated as guideposts rather than legally binding decrees.

The Ulema Council wants to change that.

Clerics have asked President Hamid Karzai to establish a new Dar al-Ifta in Afghanistan -- an institute of Islamic scholars with authority to issue Shari'a-based decrees. Unlike the nonbinding declarations from the Dar al-Ifta in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Afghan clerics want their fatwas to be enforced by the courts and national police.

Mawlawi Abdul Rahim Shah Agha, one of the Ulema clerics asking Karzai for expanded powers, says the Dar al-Ifta must be independent from Afghanistan's government and foreign influence.

"Afghanistan's clerics want to prevent Afghans from being forced to ask foreign [clerics questions about Islamic issues] so that foreign clerics won't be issuing fatwas against Afghanistan's interests in the future," Agha says.

Constitutional Implications

It's not yet clear if Karzai has the power to expand the council's authority. Presidential spokesman Siamak Heravi told RFE/RL that Karzai must first consider the constitutional implications of the request.

"It needs consideration because the work of a Dar al-Ifta and the Afghan Supreme Court may overlap. The clerics know this, so they left it for the president to consider," Heravi said. "This issue will be discussed more in the future. But as for now, no decision has been made."

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