KARACHI, May 1: The Muttahida Quami Movement chief, Altaf Hussain, has criticized the so-called religious leaders for urging suggestible youths to take part in jihad while staying comfortably away from armed conflicts.

Speaking at a “Mehfil Zikr-i-Mustafa” on Saturday night, Mr Hussain said the Prophet (Peace be upon him) practised what he preached.

“But our religious leaders, who otherwise wax eloquent about the virtues of the Prophet (Peace be upon him), hardly ever practise what they preach. For instance, they cast many an impressionable youth into the flames of wars as they themselves did nothing. Their conduct has made the religion a laughing stock in the world,” he observed.

Speaking of such wasteful militarism, he said hundreds of thousands of young men lost their lives in conflicts in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Palestine and Iraq as their leaders remained reluctant to deprive themselves of the pleasures of hearth and home.

The MQM chief also took to task those leaders who asked their followers to kill others for one reason or the other.

He criticized them for coming up with a rather limited interpretation of the Quran.

Mr Hussain said that for years religious leaders fanned the flames of sectarian hatred.

“Extremists and hard-line leaders urged their followers to fire at the mosques and imambargahs of their rivals. They played an important role in the tarnishing of Islam’s role in the world. It was the MQM’s political role which led to a decline in sectarian division,” he said.

“This is not a political rally and I wish to speak about the Prophet (Peace be upon him), who was certainly a blessing for the world. God sent 124,000 prophets but Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was His beloved. Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was meant to be a prophet not only for this universe but for all the universes,” he said.

Mr Hussain said the MQM regarded the last sermon of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) as its constitution.

“The sermon makes abundantly clear that the rich have no supremacy over the poor. By the same token, one could not have ascendancy over others because of caste and colour. It is this constitution that the Muttahida seeks to promote and act on,” he said.

Others who spoke at the gathering included Allama Hasan Zafar Naqvi, Prof Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada, Maulana Abdul Khaliq Afridi and Maulana Abrar Ahmad Rehmani.