By AZARD ALI

CARNIVAL has been condemned as “the work of the Devil” by an Islamic scholar who is Imam of the ASJA mosque in San Fernando. Mushtaq Sulaimani yesterday called on muslims not to join in propagating what he described as the manifestation of the devil in the form of “the bachannal lewdness that depicts the character of carnival”.

Sulaimani was at the time speaking at the weekly congregational prayers on Friday at the ASJA mosque on Mucurapo Street, San Fernando, when he called on the muslim community not to participate in any form or “fashion” in the event. Sulaimani is the second religious cleric in the country to openly condemn carnival recently. Last week, Catholic priest Fr Ian Taylor lashed out against the display of lewdness by female revellers, saying that carnival was the handywork of Satan. Sulaimani told the congregation of worshippers that any true believer in God would guard against carnival. The celebration of nakedness which characterises carnival, he said, was an abominable sin displeasing to God. “That is why I call on you fellow muslims not to go there...not to be part of that carnival. The wrath of God is not something you would like to know when mankind openly disgraces the creation he is so blessedly endowed with by God,” Sulaimani said. Carnival, he added, was the way of the pagan and man has long evolved from such a period of ignorance. But the activities of carnival in which thousands of women and men display their private parts so openly, the Imam of the mosque said, was a re-enactment of paganism. “Do not go there...I beg you,” Sulaimani said, “lest you are called to account.”