DUSHANBE. June 4 (Interfax) - The Tajik Ulem Council (Muftiat) has issued a fatwa on the religious group Islamic State (ISIS) condemning any relation of a Muslim to this organization, which is from now on regarded as "haram" (sinful), the republic's Islamic Center reported on Thursday.
The fatwa is expected to be read by mullahs in mosques during the Friday prayer on June 5.
"ISIS is declared haram -sinful - and participation in a jihad on the side of the Islamic State is declared a sin," the Tajik Islamic Center has reported.
According to Islamic law, haram is a term used for actions that are prohibited for Muslims. A fatwa is a decision made by a muftiat on some issue, which is binding for all Muslims.
"So-called 'defenders of Islam' that have appeared in the modern world represented by ISIS are using religious slogans to commit anti-Islamic actions, including declare people who disagree with them infidels," the fatwa says.
Tajik theologians believe that "violence against Muslim children, women, mass killings, destruction of whole ethnicities, explosions in mosques, revival of slavery, and robberies have always been foreign to Islam."
A video address by a former commander of the Tajik OMON special task police was posted on social networking sites last week. In the video, Gulmurod Khalimov said he was in Syria. Khalimov, a Tajik police colonel and a father of eight, who has graduated from the Higher Academy of the Interior Ministry and has more than once had internships in Russia and abroad on exchange programs, said he will "fight for the rights of Muslims" and promised to return to Tajikistan to establish Islamic laws there.