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"It never was and may never be easy to report about fatwas for a world audience. This point was driven home once again today when a prominent Islamic scholar presented to the media his new 600-page fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombing. Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri is a Pakistani-born Sufi scholar whose youth workshops fostering moderation and understanding in Britain had already caught our attention. His effort to knock down any and every argument in favour of violence is certainly welcome. But the back story to this event is so complicated that it's hard to report on the fatwa without simply ignoring many important parts of this back story."

"Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, a leading scholar of Sufism, the tradition within Islam that focuses on peace and tolerance, isn't the first Islamic teacher to denounce acts of terrorism.\nBut Qadri's 600-page judgment, or fatwa, is among the harshest denouncements of the theological arguments used by militant groups like al-Qaeda.\n"Whatever these terrorists are doing, it's not martyrdom," said Qadri on Tuesday."