Tripoli, March 12: Rachid Ghannouchi, the head of Tunisia’s moderate Islamist Ennahda Party which leads his country’s coalition government, is in Zliten . . .[restrict]to help foster reconciliation following last week’s attempts by Salafists to destroy the tomb there of one of the most revered Sufis in Libyan history, Sidi Abdul-Salam Al-Asmar.
He is attending a reconciliation conference which was, however, planned long before last week’s events. It starts in Zliten on Tuesday. He has been meeting with various civil and political groups in the town as well as those from Misrata and Tripoli.
Ghannouchi also took part in a reconciliation conference in Libya last December.
Meanwhile, it has been announced that NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil has asked three scholars under the supervision of Mufti of Libya, Sheikh Sadik Al-Ghariani, to study Libya’s Sufi shrines and to issue a fatwa on the legality or illegality of demolishing them. In fact last week, following the attempted attack, the Grand Mufti issued a fatwa condemning demolitions.
Last week, during the tense stand-off between the Salafists and Zliteni and Misrati brigadesmen determined to protect the shrine, a committee of town elders from Zliten, Misrata, Khoms and Emsalata agreed to send a delegation to Jalil to decide on the matter of the shrine once and for all.
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