The Dar-ul-Aloom seminary in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh is the most influential school of Islamic learning after Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Moreover, Dar-ul-Aloom provides the ideological underpinning for the Taliban and Islamic terrorist movements in South Asia. Small wonder that Moorthy Muthuswamy said that its influence should be "neutralized."
Dar-ul-Aloom recently issued a fatwa (link found through MEMRI) ostensibly condemning terrorism. This article Deoband plays peace card; a few call it bluff from the Times of India reviews feedback from readers about the fatwa. While the article provides considerable space to opinions of those who are rightly critical about the fatwa and the motives of the Islamic scholars, it concludes with this statement:
For the majority though, the Deoband's initiative was an important step in the war against terror.
What I read in the Dar-ul-Aloom fatwa was a cursory denunciation of terrorism. As with a fatwa issued by American Muslim groups, no Islamic terrorist individual or group is called out by name and denounced. The principal concern of the Dar-ul-Aloom fatwa is the treatment of Muslims in India and around the world, not opposition to Islamic terrorism.
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