Good discussion, by two non-Ahmadi Canadian-Muslims, trying to bring outrage against religious discrimination and violence in Pakistan.
Separation of Mosque-Church and State is a pressing issue in our Global Village and the Muslim Times has a tab for it under Law and Religion, with several insightful articles and other contributions on this theme.
Categories: Asia, Law, Law and Religion, Separation of Church and State, Sharia, Sharia Law
A state run by Muslims, or a Muslim society, does have the right to determine/record the faith of its citizens, but on the basis of what they profess and what they practice. I draw this conclusion from many a Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Here is one of the ahadith:
بالإسناد إلی أنس قال: قال رسول اللّه(صلی الله علیه وآله) : من صلی صلاتنا واستقبل قبلتنا وأکل ذبیحتنا فذلک المسلم الذی لـه ذمة اللّه وذمة رسوله فلا تخفروا اللّه فی ذمته.
Here’s a translation of the above quoted Hadith:
(This hadith comes to us through a chain of reliable sources, ending at Anas bin Malik.) Whoever offers our prayer facing our Qibla and eats from the meat that we kosher is a Muslim who is under the protection of Allah and His prophet. Do not interfere with God’s protectorate.
I invite the Kafir making machines the Mullahs and the governments involved to ponder over “fala tukhferullaha fi dhimmatehi”. The above translation does not do justice to this phrase. It means do not insult God in connection with those under His protection. Just saying that also does not do much justice to the phrase. So let’s go back in history when our Master the Holy Prophet (SAW) made that blessed statement. It was a custom in Arabia that someone without a friend or a tribe would seek the protection of a tribe or some influential person. If such protection was granted the protected person became the responsibility (dhimma) of the protector. After this, if anyone bothered or molested the protected person, the protector would feel insulted, get angry and all hell would break loose. So this is what My Master (SAW) warned us about: Call a professing and practicing Muslim a Kafir and you incur the wrath of God.
Now Allah Almighty does not send armies to punish the miscreants. He starts events that evolve into a punishment, be it earthly disasters, be it moral delinquency, be it foreign occupation, or be it internal strife. I warn the whole Ummah of the grave danger in letting the Mullah decide that he knows better than the Prophet.
The ideas presented in the “Focus” are all very admirable, but the question is: Who will bell the cat? I thought about it, in the context of suicide bombings and wrote “Suicide bombings in Pakistan and the Mullahs”. This article can be found at: http://www.lohar.com/Benazir.pdf
In the above article, I touch upon the apparent reasons for the current crisis and mention education and financial stability as part of a solution. It was a pleasant surprise to see that some other folks are thinking like me. But again the devil is in the detail, the implementation of these ideas. That may be a problem in Pakistan, a country where political leaders have a history of using religious differences to get their way.
I have not mentioned, to this point, the plight of my community the Ahmadiyya Community in Islam, as I believe that what started with the declaration of Ahmadis out of the pale of Islam has developed into a problem for the whole Ummah. The Mullah is flexing his muscle and is looking with interest at other possibilities, including the use of violence to get his way and dealing with other sects in the same manner.
So the punishment has started and the Muslim Ummah as a whole is the target. This is because the Ummah as a whole is guilty of ignoring another Hadith which roughly translated means that if we see some wrong being done we should try to stop it with force and if we do not have the force we should try to stop it verbally, failing that we should at least consider it bad. (The Prophet (SAW) said that the third option it the weakest form of faith.)
There is a lot of wisdom in the Hadith that I just mentioned and a hidden solution of the current crisis. Expose the Mullah and educate the general public about the eventual chaos the Mullah is leading us to.
Good to see that at least some persons from Pakistan have the courage to raise their voices against the persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan.
The following sentence in my write up above is out of order in light of the Quran: “Now Allah Almighty does not send angels to punish the miscreants.”
It should be: “Now Allah Almighty does not send armies to punish the miscreants.”
I am sorry for this oversight and I wish there were some way of coorecting the script.
I apologize for the comment which was mistakenly posted here.
Thanks for the change that I requested.