By IRNA,
Tehran : Religious leaders denounced the “divisive statement made by Egyptian cleric as anti-Islamic damaging solidarity of the Muslims.”
Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi strongly condemned Sunni cleric Yusuf Qaradawi for anti-Shia statement and damaging brotherhood of the Muslim Ummah.
Ayatollah Mohammed Taskhiri, vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars said that Qaradawi’s statements are dangerous and may “push the Muslim people in the direction of more division.” Other leading spiritual leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon, said Qaradawi was instigating fitna, or civil strife.
Qaradawi accused the Shia Muslims of trying to invade Sunni nations.
The religious leaders express dismay at the remarks amid Iraq war and efforts to forge unity.
Those opinions were first published September 6. Since then, Qaradawi, a man with a polished voice and a gray beard who hosts a show on Islamic law on TV channel Al Jazeera, has been chastised by Shia scholars and writers in what has turned into a war of polemics and personal attacks played out on websites and in newspapers from Doha to Cairo.