- Jul 21, 2008
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I'm going to quote a very long (often rambly) reddit comment I saw made today on the general subject of Islam's integration with the west. This post asserts that the reason Islamic extremism is prevalent in the UK (just as his example) comes down the to the persecution of the Ahmadis from Pakistan. He asserts that the Ahmadiyya have been pushed out of Pakistan and into the UK and even there aggressive Imams follow them and preach hate and this has morphed into imams preaching against Western culture whereas the Ahmadi's have generally tried their hardest to integrate into the West.
Basically my questions are:
What are the Ahmadiyya?
How do they fit into the Islamic world as a whole?
What is most Muslims perception of them?
Are any of these claims true?
I would like to understand this better, thanks for your contributions.
For reference, the full comment is posted below and out of the way:
Basically my questions are:
What are the Ahmadiyya?
How do they fit into the Islamic world as a whole?
What is most Muslims perception of them?
Are any of these claims true?
I would like to understand this better, thanks for your contributions.
For reference, the full comment is posted below and out of the way:
Muslim here. As i understand it, a lot of these extremist mullahs that have brought their hateful rhetoric to Britain (from Pakistan) are partially because they drove many Ahmadi Muslims out of Pakistan because of violence and religious oppression specifically dictated towards the Ahmadiyya community. There are many that have literally followed us out of Pakistan. They drove our community leader out through threats of death and violence. When they reached Britain, they continued their hate campaigns against us and then against the wider British culture. Ahmadi's by-and-large are trying to live peacefully among their British brethren, but the mullahs don't want that. They see us as apostates and have many times driven riots and systematic oppression against Ahmadi's. The Ahmadi communty has been speaking out against these very mullahs since at least the 1970's when they convinced the Pakistani government to force all Ahmadi's to declare themselves as non-Muslim if we want to vote or apply for higher offices in the government or military. We are the reason they implemented the blasphemy law in Pakistan. And they've, in more recent years, taken it as justification to attack other minorities, like Christians as Hindus in Pakistan. Mostly because Ahmadi's either hide their faith out of fear of persecution or because we blend in a little better. We have even taken to found our own town, complete with gated walls and personal security to obstruct violence against us in Punjab (in a little town called Rabwah).
if u notice where a lot of the hate preaching in Pakistancomes from, it's usually the districts around the town of Rabwah, where mullahs openly preach hatred against us. These are the same towns and same mullahs that have raised the terror groups that have attacked India in the Mumbai terrorist attack from a few years ago. Ahmadi's live by a code of non-violence and believe that the years where "jihad by the sword is dead" and that any form of jihad necessary towards converting non-Muslims must be done through writings and argumentation. We call it "jihad by the pen". We have integrated into Britain and Europe very well, I'd u ask me...as opposed to our other Muslim counterparts, some of whom still listen to these mullahs. Discrimination directed by these mullahs against us are so well-integrated into the current fabric of Pakistan that even Pakistan's only Nobel Laureate (Dr. Abdus-Salam - Nobel Laureate in Physics) had his gravestone altered by local authorities to remove the word "Muslim" from his headstone. We even had members of our community that have been President of the World Bank and Head of the UN General Assembly. But u'll rarely if ever hear of Pakistani's mention those accomplishments because discrimination is so widespread against us.
Even in this past election in Pakistan, the only "progressive" candidate, Imran Khan, was "accused" of being in "cahoots" with Ahmadi's because it was claimed he had a member of his political party ask our community leader in Britain if the Ahmadi community in Pakistan would support him and throw their votes behind him. He not only had to deny it, but did so by using the pejorative term for Ahmadi's in Pakistan, "Qadiani". Just the fact that he might have wanted our vote led him to face widespread scrutiny.
They really are a name on our existence. They've twice led national riots against us that led to them burning my fathers house down in 1974 by their own neighbors forcing them to move and break all ties with their family. And attacks on many others, including my mothers' house, which was only protected because members of our family guarded our house with about a dozen armed members. I can go on and name at least a half-dozen other anecdotes of people I know whO have escaped from Pakistan to places like Canada and the United states, taking refuge because they were either threatened with very real violence or were victims of violence.
EDIT:to add to my point, just last year or the year before, these same mullah's posted flyers in Muslim stores claiming that any store run by a Muslim that was caught selling so much as a stick of gum to an Ahmadi was going to be boycotted or even worse. As a result, Ahmadi's stopped going to some of their local stores because of this.
They also threaten violence against us all the time in Britain and beyond. As of two years ago, all Ahmadi mosques place their own security at their doors at all times to ensure no violence against us. We are doctors and lawyers and business owners who are discriminated by our own diaspora because of discriminatory practices that have followed us beyond the borders of our own home country. We've been warning the British government of these mullahs for years. The current waves of violence are only proof that what we've been saying about them and their practices are true and very real.
EDIT 2: if you read up on the accounts of what happened in 2008 or 2009 in the attack on an Ahmadi mosque in Labore, I believe upwards of 20 people were killed by armed terrorists with grenades and AK-47's, and the police just stood outside while the attack was happening. There was no help for a long time. I know of people who were killed there, and no help came for a while. This only highlighted the violence against us.
Currently, the mullahs control all politics in Pakistan and anyone who even mentions publicly that the blasphemy laws should be repealed or that the government should repeal the law that Ahmadi's should be considered Muslims according to constitutional law is shot dead or run out of office. The governor of Punjab just a year or two ago was shot dead for this very reason. The very act of considering Ahmadi's non-Muslim is enacted into the constitution of Pakistan and very specifically mentions Ahmadi's by the pejorative "Qadiani". This is the kind of discrimination that is now taking hold in Britain by some of these Mullah's, and something all Ahmadi's u speak to will tell you is something that needs to be acted against.
I thank God everyday that my family lives in Canada, where we are free to practice however we want without fear of discrimination, away from these savages who use their ill-gotten influence to terrorize Ahmadi's, Christians, Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan.