First Maguindanao religious and security summit fruitful

MAGUINDANAO --- The Bangsamoro grand mufti on Thursday urged Muslims and Christian to fuse ranks against Islamic militants defying Qur’anic teachings on oneness of humans amid religious diversities. Islam is a religion of inclusivity, not exclusivity. It preaches association, not isolation. It is all about religious tolerance, not persecution, an emotional Sheik Abu Huraira Udasan of the Bangsamoro Darul Iftah (House of Opinions) said on Thursday.Of mixed Iranun and Maguindanaon descent, the 79-year-old Udasan, who studied Islam and Christianity in the Al-Azzhar University in Cairo, Eypt and in religious schools in Jerusalem in Israel, respectively, was main speaker in the Maguindanao provincial security, economic and anti-terrorism summit in Buluan town Thursday.More than 3,000 moderate clerics and students of Islamic schools across Maguindanao’s 36 towns joined the summit, jointly organized by the office of Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, the Army’s 6thInfantry Division and the office of Senior Superintendent Agustin Tello, director of the Maguindanao provincial police.The activity, funded by Mangudadatu’s office, was also supported by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, engaged in a current peace overture with the government seeking a diplomatic closure to the now 50-year Mindanao Moro issue.Magudadatu told summit participants he will provide President Rodrigo Duterte and Congress a report on the consensus reached by resource persons and participants to the two-day summit that reeled off on October 18.The event was launched exactly two days after Duterte announced that government forces have liberated Marawi City from combined Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists who laid siege to more than a dozen barangays there on May 23, sparking a conflict that lasted for more than four months.Army officials tacitly appreciated during the event the support of the local Moro communities to Duterte’s campaign against violent religious extremists, or VREs, trying to wedge the solidarity of the southern Muslim and Christian sectors.Among the feats of Malacañang they mentioned were the joint police-military operations that resulted in the deaths on Monday in Marawi City of Isnilon Hapilon, leader of one of three groups in the Abu Sayyaf, and his ally, Omar Maute of the Maute group, and of Jaafar Maguid of the Ansar Al-Khilafa in Sarangani province early this year.The security officials, led by Major Arnel Dela Vega of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division, told reporters they are also grateful to Maguindanao provincial and municipal officials who helped in the MILF’s government-sanctioned seven-week offensive against a third group in the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.The main enclave of the Islamic State-inspired BIFF faction, led by radical cleric Esmael Abdulmalik, at the border of Maguindanao’s Salibo and Datu Piang towns, were taken over by MILF two weeks ago following deadly clashes that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen of its guerillas and 28 militants.Mangudadatu, who spoke lengthily during the second day of the summit, urged his constituent-clerics to help authorities monitor movements of violent religious extremists, or VREs, in their villages.He also urged them to patiently support his administration’s bid for them to be enlisted, with just compensation, by the national government as peace mentors in areas vulnerable to infiltration by militants fomenting animosity to non-Muslims.In their messages, Mangudadatu and the foreign-trained Udasan, grand mufti (preacher) of the Darul Iftah, narrated stories on chronicled examples of Islam’s progenitor, Mohammad, in rallying Muslims and non-Muslims together to help oversee the pioneer Islamic ummah (nation) he established in the ancient Arabian Peninsula where Islam originated as a religion.Udasan said one proof that Islam is a religion that respects non-Muslims is how Mohammad personally brokered the Charter of Medina that set rules meant to ensure tranquility and cooperation in community affairs among his followers, the Jews and other non-Islamic communities in Medina in what is now Saudi Arabia.The charter became the foundation of Arabia’s first ever inter-religious Islamic state that Mohammad established as part of his initial missionary works.It was also partly intended to put an end to the deadly tribal and religious animosity among the people in desert enclaves then in the Middle East.Udasan also lectured on the Islamic la iqra fidin maxim, which contextually means there is no compulsion in religion.He repeatedly branded as haram, Arabic for forbidden, the activities of VREs belonging to the Abu Sayyaf, the Maute terror group and all other local blocs using the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as revolutionary banner.Mangudadatu told reporters he is thankful to religious leaders and military officials who helped organize the two-day summit, among them Col. Markton Abo, the Muslim civil-military relations officer of 6thID.The MILF was represented in the summit by the first vice chairman of its central committee, Ghazali Jaafar, who is chairman of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.