ISLAMABAD: Several Pakistani clerics have turned down invitations to attend a two-day international conference on Afghanistan that started in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Tuesday and is expected to end with the issuance of a communiqué against the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. The International Conference of Muslim Scholars on Peace and Stability in Afghanistan, hosted by Saudi Arabia in collaboration of the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), will conclude in the holy city of Makkah on Wednesday (today) with a declaration to condemn violence in Afghanistan, according to organisers. Some of the Pakistani invitees have told Daily Times that they disagreed with the contents of the invitation letter, in which all groups operating in Afghanistan have been declared terrorists. “We had serious reservations over the agenda. The organisers had not consulted us ahead of the conference and our concern is the conference will adopt a declaration without our input,” an invitee told Daily Times, preferring to stay anonymous. Daily Times has further learnt that most of the Pakistani scholars invited for the event were those who had participated in a similar conference held in Indonesia in May this year. The conference ended with a declaration terming suicide attacks in Afghanistan against Islam and also backing President Ashraf Ghani’s dialogue offer to the Taliban. Meanwhile, Taliban have also issued a statement defending their activities against the US-led foreign forces and saying that the conflict in the country is ‘not an inter-Afghan battle or battle among the Muslims. It started 17-years ago when Americans invaded Afghanistan using aerial and ground force’. The statement said Afghans do not expect the Saudi Arabian authorities and scholars side the ‘American invaders in this fight between Islam and disbelief’. Daily Times has learnt that Pakistani scholars also declined Saudi invitations include those considered very close to the Kingdom, like Fazlur Rehman Khalil, who led a Difa-i-Harmain Sharifain movement when Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a military campaign against Shi’ite Houthis in Yemen, the outfit fighting the Saudi-backed government in the country. Khalil changed his mind when he read the invitation, said a source close to him. Mufti Abdul Rahim, who heads Jamiatur Rasheed Karachi, a major seminary of the Deobandi schools of thought, also refused the invitation. Maulana Anwarul Haq, the deputy chief of Madrassa Haqqania, and Maulana Idrees, a senior teacher at Haqqania, who had attended the Indonesian conference, also preferred to stay away from the Saudi meeting. An official of the seminary told Daily Times that Maulana Samiul Haq, chief of his own faction of JUI, had stopped the two from traveling to the Kingdom. In a recent statement, Samiul Haq, who publicly supports Afghan Taliban, launched an appeal to the ulema not to participate in the conferences, holding that such events ‘stop jihad against the American imperialists in Afghanistan and the whole Islamic world’. He said the top American commander in Afghanistan General Nicolson had stated in March this year that the US will use religious scholars against the Taliban. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, Qibla Ayaz, has also gone to Saudi Arabia to attend the conference. Some other renowned scholars Dr Abdul Razaq, the president of the Wafaqul Madaris al-Arabiya; Allama Zahid Mehmood Qasmi, the chairman of the Markazi Ulema Council; Allama Shah Owais Noorani of JUP; and Maulana Azizur Rehman Hazarvi have reportedly also declined invitations, which were delivered through Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Ministry. The Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen has expressed the hope that the conference will lead to national reconciliation in Afghanistan and the cessation of all acts of terrorism and violent extremism that are contrary to the teachings of the Islamic religion. He pointed out that 105 prominent Muslim scholars are participating in the conference from a number of countries including Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia Indonesia, Egypt, Sudan and Morocco. Daily Times sent queries to the Saudi embassy’s officials to seek their comments but they avoided response. Published in Daily Times, July 11th 2018.