PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday expressed anger at the misinterpretation of a verse of the Holy Quran in an Islamiat textbook and ordered the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board to correct the mistake within a week and provide new books to students before the end of the summer vacation.

A bench consisting of Justice Qaiser Rasheed and Justice Lal Jan Khattak fixed Sept 12 for the next hearing into a petition jointly filed by advocate Ibrar Hussain and several others.

The petitioners requested the court to act against the people responsible for mistranslation of a verse of the Holy Quran in a textbook for ninth and 10th grade about the collection of bounties during war.

Asks textbook board to provide revised books to schoolchildren

The bench ruled that new corrected textbook should be provided to students and the progress report should be given to the court before the end of the summer vacation.

The secretary of the textbook board appeared before the court on notice.

The bench asked him why the board had been teaching wrong interpretation of Quranic verses to students and how long they had been doing that.

It wondered how the officials concerned could turn a blind eye to such a matter.

The secretary said that textbook had been taught in schools since the academic year 2012-13 and that the mistake was being corrected.

Deputy attorney general Kifayatullah said after the passage of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010, the preparation of curriculum and textbook was the responsibility of the provincial governments.

He said mistakes were made in the textbook of the KP Textbook Board and not that of the federal government.

The DAG also produced the textbook of the federal government saying it didn’t carry any wrong translation of Quranic verses.

The bench observed wherein the 18th Amendment it was mentioned that the provinces would make mistranslation of verses of the Holy Quran. It inquired how the collection of ‘Mal-i-Ghanemat’ could be termed ‘loot and plunder’.

The petitioners said in the controversial translation of a verse related to the collection of bounties during war by Muslims at the time of Holy Prophet (PBUH) had been termed as ‘loot and plunder’, which was distortion of Islamic history.

They said the mistake had been committed in the Islamiat course book for 9th and10th grade in schools under supervision of different educational boards in the province.

Additional advocate general Syed Sikandar Shah said the textbook board was rectifying the mistake and that the revised version of book would be available within a week.

He added that the new book would be provided to students soon.

DRAMA STAYED: The bench stopped a private entertainment television channel from airing a drama, ‘Kun Faya Kun’, until next order and sought replies from the channel and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority chairman on a petition against it.

Over a dozen lawyers have jointly filed the petition requesting the court to issue appropriate directions to the respondents, including the owner of Hum TV channel, to delete words ‘Kun Faya Kun’ from the drama and title song and respect the religious sentiments of petitioners and other Muslims.

The bench fixed Sep 12 for next hearing directing the respondents to file replies to the petition.

The respondents in the petition are: Government of Pakistan through information secretary, Pemra through its chairman, owner of Hum TV Channel, producer of the drama Momina Duraid, director Ilyas Kashmiri, writer Qaisara Hayat and several actors.

The petitioners contended the words ‘Kun Faya Kun’ were used in the Holy Quran on different occasions and the respondents had used them in the drama and song with mala fide intentions, so it was an unbearable act for Muslims.

They claimed that they had also received a religious edict (fatwa) from Darvesh Mosque, declaring the act un-Islamic.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2019