Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has said that Islam advocates respect for humanity, dialogue, integration, love, peace and enjoins upon its followers to work for the welfare of all humankind. He said that resort to massacre and burning schools and shrines of the Saints represents the opposite of what Islam stands for. Islam, he added, gives a complete security and freedom to the non-Muslims. Islam does not approve of a Jihad aimed at murdering people and turning people into suicide bombers. The so-called Jihadis, he said, are the joint enemies of the Muslims and the non-Muslims. He expressed these views while addressing an intellectual meeting telephonically from Canada on the subject of Jihad in Minhaj University the other day. He said that Islam is a religion of peace. He asked the peace loving nations to join hands to defeat those elements who invoke religion to justify their reprehensible actions.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri regretted that a great deal of confusion is found about the meaning and application of Jihad in both the Muslim and non-Muslim societies. In these circumstances, he said that it is the responsibility of scholars to abandon their passivity and come out in the open to address the challenge. He said that the Western world needs to be sensitized to the real concept of Jihad, which has wider and broader meaning than what it has been understood. He said that the holy Quran has mentioned Jihad at 35 places in great detail and according to sayings of the Holy Prophet (SAW), Jihad is of spiritual, scholarly, social, political and defensive nature.

He said that so-called Jihadis are wrongly invoking religion to justify their unjustifiable actions. These elements, he added in the same context, want to rob Islam of the essence of its teachings by misinterpreting them. He said that defensive war is sanctioned by the U.N. charter and can only be declared by a state or a government. In case of defensive war, Islam enjoins upon its followers to exercise restraint and spare the old, women, children, worship places, crops and hospitals etc.