Via the Telegraph: Clerics strip fugitive Taliban leader of power
A crowd of 600 Afghan clerics gathered in front of an historic mosque yesterday to strip the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar of his claim to religious authority, in a ceremony that provided a significant boost to the presidency of Hamid Karzai.The declaration, signed by 1,000 clerics from across the country, is an endorsement of the US-backed programme of reconciliation with more moderate elements of the Taliban movement that Karzai has been pursuing ahead of the country’s first parliamentary elections, due in September.
Symbolically, the ulema shura, or council of clerics, was held at the Blue Mosque in the southern city of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban movement.
At the same venue in 1996 the Taliban leader held up a cloak said to belong to the Prophet Mohammed, which is kept in a shrine in the mosque. He was proclaimed Amir ul-Mumineen or Leader of Muslims by the same clerical body, one of the few occasions the title has been granted anywhere in the Islamic world in the modern era.
Symbolically, quite significant. At a minimum it is good to see muslim clerics banding together to condemn someone who has used Islam as a tool of violence.
James Joyner has more, including rightly noting that beyond the Omar business, the fact that these clerics also pledged support to a secular, democratically elected government in lieu of support for Omar and his ilk is huge for the political development of Afghanistan.
