A video circulating on Pakistani social media claims that during a press conference on September 30, Jamiat Ulema e Islam F (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman supported Pakistan recognising the state of Israel, saying that if the government had done so, it would have been in accordance with the Quran.
The claim is false.
On October 1, a Facebook user posted a 56-second video with the overlaid text: “Biggest U-turn by the Jews’ agent.”
It alleged that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who had previously insisted that no one should recognise Israel, was now saying that if the government had recognised Israel, then it was done in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah.
The accompanying video shows the politician responding to a journalist’s question at a press conference about what he would do if Pakistan recognises Israel.
At the time of writing, the post had been viewed over 116,000 times, shared more than 1,500 times, and liked over 1,300 times.
Similar claims were also shared on different platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram here, here, and here.
Fazl did not make any such statement during his September 30 press conference.
The full 25-minute press conference can be viewed on JUI-F’s official Facebook account here.
The viral video was clipped from the timestamp 13:15 to 14:10, when a journalist asked Rehman:
"It seems the Pakistani government will recognise Israel. If it does, what will be your reaction? And my second question is, what will you say about the decision of the Council of Islamic Ideology regarding Engineer Muhammad Ali [a religious scholar]?”
Rehman responded: “Look, I am not a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology and it is a constitutional forum… It is our constitutional forum, and whatever decision they have taken, of course they must have done it in the light of the Quran and Sunnah.”
At no point during the press conference did Maulana Fazlur Rehman say that if the government had recognised Israel, it did so according to the Quran and Sunnah. Later in the presser he said no one in Pakistan should even think about recognising Israel. His comment can be heard in the above link at the timestamp 24:20.
Verdict: The claim is false. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s response has been taken out of context and falsely portrayed online. In the press conference, he did not say that if the government had recognised Israel, it had done so in the light of the Quran and Sunnah.
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