Grand Mufti’ faces music over Dal concert
SRINAGAR; 27, July 2013: Kashmir’s self-styled Grand Mufti, Mufti Bashir-ud-Din, whose infamous fatwa in February this year declaring music as forbidden in Islam forced the all-girls rock band to quit, is in news again after an online video showing him attending a musical event has gone viral.
The two-minute on YouTube shows the Mufti at a musical function held under the aegis of Doordarshan in a houseboat on the Dal Lake here.
The video shows the Mufti sitting with PDP ‘s women leader and former director of Doordarshan, Shahzadi Simon, while a renowned Kashmiri singer Qaiser Nizami is entertaining the audience with famous gazals from the Pakistani legend Mehdi Hasan.
On Saturday, when a Delhi-based newspaper ‘Mail Today’ reported the incident under the headline ‘Music is un-Islamic’ unless you are the Grand Mufti of course!’ many people, particularly youngsters, slammed Mufti Bashir on seeing the video. Mufti has threatened to sue the daily.
Meanwhile, talking to KMR News Mufti Bashir said the Dal lake function was a literary one and that he was sitting to the side not listening to music.
“It was a literary function to commemorate the death anniversary Akbar Hyderi (Kashmir’s well-known Urdu writer who passed away last year). It started with the recitation of Holy Qur’an and there was no rock band in it,” Mufti said.
When asked about the questions raised to his sitting with a ‘stranger’ woman and listening to music, he said, “Yes, Qaiser Nizami was singing, but it was separate to the function. We were sitting separately to one side not listening to the music.”
The two-minute on YouTube shows the Mufti at a musical function held under the aegis of Doordarshan in a houseboat on the Dal Lake here.
The video shows the Mufti sitting with PDP ‘s women leader and former director of Doordarshan, Shahzadi Simon, while a renowned Kashmiri singer Qaiser Nizami is entertaining the audience with famous gazals from the Pakistani legend Mehdi Hasan.
On Saturday, when a Delhi-based newspaper ‘Mail Today’ reported the incident under the headline ‘Music is un-Islamic’ unless you are the Grand Mufti of course!’ many people, particularly youngsters, slammed Mufti Bashir on seeing the video. Mufti has threatened to sue the daily.
Meanwhile, talking to KMR News Mufti Bashir said the Dal lake function was a literary one and that he was sitting to the side not listening to music.
“It was a literary function to commemorate the death anniversary Akbar Hyderi (Kashmir’s well-known Urdu writer who passed away last year). It started with the recitation of Holy Qur’an and there was no rock band in it,” Mufti said.
When asked about the questions raised to his sitting with a ‘stranger’ woman and listening to music, he said, “Yes, Qaiser Nizami was singing, but it was separate to the function. We were sitting separately to one side not listening to the music.”
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