Pakistani clerics fight AIDS through Islam

[sonz]

A group of Muslim clerics had been hired by Pakistani authorities to launch a new AIDS awareness campaign.

Statistics show that millions of people die every year of illnesses resulting from Aids, once thought to be a curable, low profile virus.

There are about 3,297 reported cases of HIV/AIDS in Pakistan.

But Qamar-ul-Islam Siddiqi, the program coordinator, believes that "the reported ones are just the tip of the iceberg,"

"We have enlisted the help of religious leaders and clerics and printed specific material of Qur’anic teachings in order to reach the majority of Pakistan's 160 million people," Islam said.

The epidemic has struck several parts of Africa, where more people die from Aids than anything else.

"Many of them are deported (from the Middle East) after tested HIV positive. It is very important to make them aware of the risk they pose to their families and to change their lifestyle," Dr Adnan Khan, a consultant with the program said.

The material prepared by Pakistani clerics will be used in other Islamic countries, including Indonesia and Egypt who have already translated the books and posters to use them as part of their own national programs.

"We are encouraging even strict clerics in northwestern areas to deliver this model sermon to create more awareness among the people," said Dr Iqbal Khalil, a senior leader of the country's main religious opposition party, Jamaat-e-Islami, who used the reference book in one of the sermons during Friday prayers.

Another program was launched in Pakistan in 1995 but organisers faced many difficulties in trying to create awareness due to the social and religious constraints, for many Pakistanis associate AIDS with having sexual intercourse outside marriage which is strictly prohibited in Islam.

The disease, now spreading at an alarming rate in Eastern Europe and Russia, has become the most widely known, and potentially the most dangerous disease history of humanity had known.

AlJazeera

[Joe98]

AIDS is connected to sexual practises - not religion.

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

mostly from pre marital sex...
the religion part is about tellin people there that its prohibited in Islam...

[Joe98]

The Seventh Day Adventists have an even better solution to AIDS - don't allow bloood transfusions. :brother: