A debating competition is being held in the conference hall of the historic Madrassa Qasimia in Ghulam Muhammad Abad locality of Faisalabad. The judges sit close to the rostrum. The right side of the stage is set for prominent guests who have arrived to attend a unique event.

The unique thing is the contestants are not called by their names or madrassas they belong to. Instead, the participants which are 39 in all, have been assigned numbers and are called accordingly.

Just as roll numbers are used to hide the identity of candidates in exams, this has been done purposefully on the request of the contestants. The reason is simple; these participants belong to madrassas of different sects and schools of thought. In normal circumstances, they would not even talk to each other or let each other enter their respective madrassas or mosques. But, on this occasion, they have enrolled for participation in a debating contest arranged by a Deobandi madrassa.

"The students of different madrassas requested the organisers to hide their entity as they feared the judges would show bias towards them while compiling results," says Zahid Mehmood Qasmi, the head of Madrassa Qasimia. "These fears are deep-rooted. They have always heard negative things about each other but it is time now to open their minds and prepare them to tackle modern day challenges."

He says the idea was to put students of Barelvi, Salfi, Deobandi, Ahl-e-hadith, Shia and other madrassas under one roof and have them engage in intellectual debate. "The best part was that all the participants had got prior approval from their madrassas to participate in the contest."

This change of heart did not take place overnight, says Allama Tahir Ashrafi, Chairman, Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC). "It has taken a lot of dedicated ground work on the part of religious leaders from different sects to give birth to a culture of healthy debate and tolerance towards difference of opinion."

He says this does not mean that differences in thoughts of different sects are no more there. But people need guidance on modern issues much more than the basic issues like which posture to adopt while saying prayers.

Ashrafi says they have held 12 conferences, six debating competitions and six training sessions for students and teachers of madrassas all over the country to promote inter-sect harmony among them. "To date 80,000 religious scholars and 11,000 madrassas have joined PUC which is no small development. This proves the majority wants peace but a tiny minority is bent upon creating panic and spreading hatred among followers of the same faith."

While the soft approach of cleansing minds of hatred is being followed systematically, there is a need for enforcement of a strict code of conduct for religious leaders of different sects as well. The suggestions include ban on the use of loudspeaker for provocative speeches and printing and distribution of hate literature, prohibition of declaring each other infidel, restriction on passing objectionable remarks against sacred personalities and so on.

The government of Punjab is mulling legislation on making a nine-point code of conduct a part of law. "The draft is with the federal and Punjab law ministers and a campaign is underway to initiate debates in respective assemblies," says Ashrafi.

He says had this code or one similar to it been in the place and implemented strictly, there would have been no tragic incident in Rawalpindi on Yom-e-Aashur. "Though the code is yet to be incorporated as a law, it has set up a momentum which can be seen in the form of a large number of criminal cases being registered against the misuse of loudspeaker and hate speech."

Ashrafi says the PUC has compiled a book titled Modern Day Challenges and their Solutions which talks about the real issues facing people in modern times. It includes research papers and speeches of renowned religious scholars belonging to different schools of thought. He says the book covers important topics such as protection of environment, unity among Muslims, importance of using decent language, rights of neighbours, sanctity of places of worship for non-Muslims, human rights, prohibition of spying on others, importance of education for girls, Islamic principles of war and peace, difference between jihad and terrorism, the concept of forgiveness and our attitudes and hazards of spreading rumours.