While the scale of violence in Afghanistan continues to reach new heights, Afghan clerics, political activists and parliamentarians said at a seminar on Thursday that insurgents do not have a complete understanding of religion and they are tarnishing the image of Islam and Muslims.
 
“No one feels safe in our beloved country, the country is bathed in blood and we need peace now,” said religious scholar Samiullah Raihan.
 
They said that Islam teaches the culture of patience, peace and tolerance, and in turn called on insurgents, including the Taliban, to denounce violence and stop the ongoing bloodshed.
 
The gathering of Islamic scholars and members of political parties and parliamentarians discussed ways on how to promote the culture of tolerance in Afghanistan and to persuade militant groups to lay down their arms and work towards peace.
 
“The war poses serious threats to our territorial integrity, the war pushes us toward disintegration,” said chairman Harakat party Abdul Hakim Muneeb.
 
The seminar was convened by the Harakat-e-Inqilab-e-Islami Afghanistan party where the speakers expressed their views on ways that could help bring an end to the ongoing war.
 
The participants asked the Taliban to join the peace process.
 
Some ex-Taliban officials also attended the seminar.
 
“Daesh’s ideology is a wrong ideology, they are misinterpreting the religion, they do not know about the religion, they are just tarnishing the image of the religion,” said MP Mirwais Yasini.
 
Speakers called for the end to violence amid ongoing clashes around the country – which has been hard hit in the past year by a surge in Taliban insurgency that has overshadowed peace attempts in the country.