Pakistan hardliners honor bin Laden in Rushdie row

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A group of hardline Pakistani Muslim clerics said on Thursday they had bestowed a religious title on Osama bin Laden in response to a British knighthood for author Salman Rushdie.

The Pakistan Ulema Council gave bin Laden the title "Saifullah", or sword of Allah, in response to the knighthood awarded to Rushdie last week for services to literature.

Rushdie's novel, "The Satanic Verses" published in 1988, outraged many Muslims around the world. Muslims say it blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Koran.

"If a blasphemer can be given the title 'Sir' by the West despite the fact he's hurt the feelings of Muslims, then a mujahid who has been fighting for Islam against the Russians, Americans and British must be given the lofty title of Islam, Saifullah," the council's chairman, Tahir Ashrafi, told Reuters.

Bin Laden was one of many Arabs who helped Afghan mujahideen battle Soviet invaders in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Pakistan and Iran have protested against the knighthood awarded by Britain's Queen Elizabeth and small demonstrations have been held in various parts of Pakistan and in Malaysia.

On Monday, Pakistan's parliament adopted a resolution condemning the knighthood and said Britain should withdraw it.

Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq, son of the late military president Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, told the assembly that if someone committed a suicide bombing to protect the honor of the Prophet Mohammad, his act was justified.

He later said he did not mean such attacks would be justified but was merely saying militants could use the knighthood as a justification.

"IMAGE OF ISLAM"

However, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said Haq should be dismissed, saying in a statement that Haq "had done a great disservice both to the image of Islam and the standing of Pakistan by calling for the murder of foreign citizens."

The speaker of the National Assembly has expunged Haq's comments from the record, citing the national interest.

Britain has defended the knighthood, stressing the importance of free speech and saying that it was part of a trend of honoring Muslims in the British community.

Rushdie was born to Muslim parents in India, prompting Muslims to accuse him of apostasy after "The Satanic Verses" was published.

The late Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa religious edict against Rushdie in 1989 calling for his death and forcing him into hiding for nine years.