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The Rohingya Crisis: Perspectives of Bangladeshi Religious Leaders

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Abstract

This study aimed to explore Bangladeshi religious leaders’ perspectives on the Rohingya refugee crisis and its implications for Bangladesh. We have employed a triangulation of methods composed of content analysis, qualitative intensive interviews and a robust Internet search to conduct the study. Bangladesh has experienced many impacts from the massive influx of the Rohingya into its territory. The Bangladeshi religious leaders reject the Burmese Government’s official narrative that the Rohingya are illegal Bengali immigrants. They condemn the Rohingya’s human rights abuse and opine that Burma must accept the refugees and reinstate their citizenship. The article, in the end, offers some pragmatic policy recommendations to surmount the Rohingya crisis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editor and reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on this manuscript. The authors also thank Mohammad Azharul Islam, Liton Bala, and Sourov Chakrabarty for their support during data collection.

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The authors received no financial support for this research.

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Initially, Mumena Mahfuza Chowdhury, Md Ahsanul Hoque and Sanwar Jahan collected data and prepared the initial draft. Md Nazrul Islam then did more research, further collected and analysed data. All authors then worked together to finalise the manuscript. The authors claim equal authorship.

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Correspondence to Md Nazrul Islam.

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Islam, M.N., Chowdhury, M.M., Hoque, M.A. et al. The Rohingya Crisis: Perspectives of Bangladeshi Religious Leaders. Cont Islam 16, 353–377 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-022-00486-6

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