Hate leaflets circulating in Pakistan have been linked to Stockwell Mosque
Source/Credit: BBC London: By Kurt Barling: Special correspondent / 22 September 2011
A south London mosque is at the centre of allegations it helped promote of acts of terror and hate in Pakistan.
Leaflets circulating in Pakistan calling for the murder of members of the Ahmadi Muslim sect directed readers to a website naming Stockwell Mosque.
The website mentioned on the leaflets in turn advised people with queries to contact the mosque in Stockwell.
Angry trustees at the mosque said its name had been misused and it had no links to the Pakistani organisation.
Trustee Toaha Qureshi said: “We don’t have any linkage with this organisation which is promoting hate.”
Minority communities in Pakistan have become targets of intense discrimination and even assassination.
A full scale assault by Jihadi gunmen on an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore in May 2010 left 93 people dead and a whole community terrorised.
The Ahmadis’ beliefs are at theological odds with Islam and it has been a source of conflict for decades.
Seeking asylum
The Ahmadis have a display to “martyrs” at their international headquarters in Merton, south London.
Leaders of that community claim support from British Muslims is fostering a campaign of hate in Pakistan. They say as a result more people are arriving in London seeking asylum.
Dr Hamidullah Rehmatullah Mughal was a prominent dentist and elder in the Ahmadi community of Faisalabad. His family believe he was targeted by militants trying to cleanse Pakistan of religious opponents.
He was murdered in a sectarian killing shortly after the Lahore bombings. His family say it was his desire to build a mosque for the Ahmadi community that brought him into conflict with Mullahs who are supported by the Pakistani Taliban. His daughters Asifa and Zahida, along with their mother, have claimed they needed to go into hiding for several months and they have now sought asylum in the UK.
It is not only Ahmadis who are targeted by Jihadis in Pakistan but since the armed attack on the Lahore mosque, threats are said to have intensified against this community.
In London, too, hostilities have burst into the open. In Tooting last year a public campaign to boycott Ahmadi businesses was only halted after the intervention of local MPs and community leaders.
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Pakistan, UK
Moderate Muslims should demonstrate their moderation, every where in the world, by distancing themselves from the preachers of hate and violence. You cannot have your cake and eat it too! In our global village we have respect the sanctity and religious freedom of each and every human life. So, there is freedom of speech but no freedom to promote hatred, violence and disorder.
The Muslims should understand that hating and killing in the name of Islam is not a service to Islam but a grave disservice to this peaceful religion. We appeal to all those who are involved in this disservice to Islam that stop hating Ahmadis but join the Ahmadiyya movement to serve Islam around the world; and show passion and love to mankind, don’t hate, love mankind.
Come forward and believe and spread this beautiful slogan which in reality is the essence of Islam, “Love for all, Hatred for none”.