The banners in the picture reflect extreme form of hatemongering, suggesting that if a Sunni or a Shiite Muslim dies while shaking hand with an Ahmadi Muslim, he or she will be guaranteed hell, for the act of being kind to the Ahmadi!
Source/Credit: The News Pakistan, Wednesday July 20, 2011
Although he may not be able to comprehend the seriousness of the message, every time eight-year-old Akbar* sees a sticker denouncing Ahmadis at his apartment’s gate, he knows that trouble is right around the corner.
“I don’t play outside anymore,” he said, while sitting idly in his room. “Other boys call me Kaafir, even though I know the Kalima. Ammi does not allow me to leave the house anymore.”
For Ahmadis, living in Pakistan has not been easy for the past three decades. Their troubles start from being excluded in social life to getting killed in the hundreds as they pray at their mosques. Though most of their troubles remained confined to the Punjab province, the community’s safe haven, Karachi, is no longer so safe for them.
In Metroville, which is considered to be one of the most volatile areas for Ahmadis, fifty families living in a residential complex are continuously being targeted by religious extremists.
At the house of young Akbar, the older men of his community gather to speak of the horrors they are forced to go through on a daily basis. Afraid to give out their names, the men draw grey curtains around the room, causing the ambiance to match their gloomy moods.
“We have been living here for the last eleven years, but have never felt this insecure. The miscreants keep antagonising us in order to get a response. If we do respond, the situation will turn violent and, therefore, we try to keep our cool,” said one of them.
Rising extremism in the country is leading many of the mosques and madrasas in the locality to spew hatred. Situated nearby, Bilal Masjid held a conference in March, during which the listeners were told to harm the Ahmadi community for the sake of religion.
“The clerics told the people to awake from their slumber and kill us. When my child heard the speech blaring from the loudspeakers, he asked me why they wanted to kill us. I had no answer,” said another resident.
But such hatred is not only spread by word of mouth. Booklets and pamphlets about the ‘reality’ of the community are openly distributed in the area. One such booklet released by a religious organisation issued instructions to cut off all ties with the Ahmadis and those who indulged in relations with the community would be labeled Kaafirs. Another pamphlet lectures on “Qadyanion kay saath tajarat aur mel milaap haram hai”.
Read more: And watch a video just as an example.
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Pakistan
Pakistan occupies and important place in Ahmadiyya. Community has a lot in that country. Why not to consider some efforts through which each influential country and organisation is bombarded with the news containining atrocities to Ahmadies in Pakistan. It will require collection of email addresses, selection and tailoring of material to serve best the purpose of community. Whether any concrete effort in this regard (specially pertaining to Pakistan) is already done or not is not in my knowledge.
It is not a simple affair. The persecution of members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is so silly that it is not easy to explain to ‘Western’ people. Even the Prime Minister of Sweden (not the current one) said to Hazrat Khalifatul Masih IV “what is the problem, just pray at home” …
Moderate Muslims have to defeat this extremism in order to retain their own rationality and to gain any reasonable acceptance in the international community, which punishes hate crimes more severely than ordinary crimes and does not overlook them.
The moderate Sunni and Shiite Muslims should think, what if similar banners, like in the picture above, talk about them in these terms all over Europe, Australia, USA, India and China, where they are a minority?
A fanatic walk up to an ahmadi muslim, points a gun at him and say: “Recite the Kalma or else I kill you!!!”
The ahmadi reply:”Laillah illalla ho muhammad ur Rassoullollah. Is that right?”
The fanatic walk away and say, “you’re lucky cause even I don’t know.”
That’s more less the current status over there ~_~