Extremist Clerics Meet in Northern Virginia, Glorify Armed Jihad, Label America “Land of the Infidels” & Condemn Muslims who ‘Reject Jihad.’

American Muslims are often asked to apologize for religious extremism carried out in the name of Islam. I believe this is an unfair demand. What is fair though is the expectation that us Muslims be the first to call out the extremists within the wider American Muslim Community, whenever we see them. And this is why I am writing this piece. Because like any other community, there are nut-jobs within our fold too.

This past weekend, two radical Sunni groups, ‘Idara Dawat-O-Irshad, U.S.A. Inc’ & ‘Khatme Nabuwwat Center, Inc.’ (both registered in Virginia) organized an event at the Holiday Inn Express in Springfield, VA. Interested in knowing what the groups were offering to American Muslim audiences, I drove down from Baltimore to attend the event.

Right at the entrance to the conference hall, extremist literature glorifying ‘Holy War’ and condemning the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as ‘Kafir’ (infidels) and depicting them as ‘the greatest enemy of Islam’ was being openly displayed and distributed.

Keep in mind, I identify as an Ahmadi Muslim too. It gets interesting.

I greeted some of the organizers and sat myself quietly in the second row. Most speakers at the event were Pakistani American Imams who identified as “Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaah” (Sunnis). The keynote speaker, Mufti Habibur Rehman Ludhyanvi, had flown all the way from Pakistan. The audience was also heavily Pakistani in origin, with tens of kids and youth in attendance. The event, titled “Final Prophet Conference,” was primarily a recruitment and fundraising effort, with a special focus on young Muslim Americans.

The director of Idara Dawat-O-Irshad, Imam Omar F. Khan, opened the event by welcoming the audience and introducing the speakers. At this point, no one knew I was an Ahmadi. It just didn’t come up. But wait for it.

Mufti Shazad Hussain, currently the Imam at Springfield’s ‘Masjid Noor’ Mosque took to the podium and glorified the notion of armed Jihad, condemning Ahmadi Muslims as infidels for rejecting the ‘Jihadist’ ideology.

“Most of the (Indian) people in the frontline against the British were Muslims,” he claimed. But along came Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who forbade the Muslims from waging violent Jihad and preached that “this is something that should not be done.” Hussain bemoaned that while Muslims were awaiting a Messiah who would wage wars for Islam, Ahmad instead said, “I am not going to do it through any bloodshed or wars, but through arguments.”

In the literature that was passed out, repeated references were made to Ahmad’s prohibition of armed Jihad against a non-Muslim government, an “act of treason against Muslims.” Multiple speakers condemned the Ahmadis and held them responsible for discouraging Muslims from partaking in violent Jihad, a concept which they believed was widespread before ‘these infidels’ (Ahmadis) corrupted it.

During his rant against Ahmadi Muslims, Mr. Hussain also urged American Muslims not to cooperate with the Ahmadis on any forum, even if it be a matter of defending Islam or combatting Islamophobia. He said that the Ahmadis say “because Islam is being attacked from all corners, we as Muslims should work together. But glory be to Allah.. we have decided not to support anything they say.”

Mr. Shazad Hussain is a graduate of Pakistan’s Jamia Binoria seminary in Karachi, known for bigotry and extremism. The principal of Jamia Binoria, Mufti Naeem, recently released a video message praying for the “complete annihilation” of the Ahmadis. The seminary has also issued edicts declaring the Shiites infidel and forbidding Muslims from wishing Christians and other non-Muslims well on their sacred holidays. According to a BBC report, the seminary is credited with producing several students who later took to terrorism.

After stating that the Ahmadis were followers of a ‘false prophet,’ Mr. Usman Ahsan, a graduate of Dar-ul-Uloom Canada, who currently gives sermons at Dar Alnoor Islamic Community Center in Manassas, Virginia elaborated on the punishment for following a ‘false prophet.’ He related the stories of ‘false prophets’ after Prophet Muhammad’s demise, and stressed on how Islam’s first caliph waged a military operation and killed them and their followers. In reality, no one was killed by any Islamic caliph merely for their claims.

“Do you know there was a man who claimed prophethood at the time of the prophet of Allah. His name was Musailma Kadhab. Hadhrat Abu Bakr (the first claiph of Islam) immediately gathered a crowd of the companions and formed an army and dispatched them to go and fight and put an end to this man. Keep in mind, Musailma believed in Allah and the prophet of Allah. Why did Hadhrat Abu Bakr decide to go and confront him? Because his beliefs were wrong.”

“He (Musailma) claimed prophethood and that was enough to diapach an army.” Mr. Ahsan then rhetroically asked, “Was this (war) all in vain?” “Of course not.” And to make sure the audience knew that this commandment was for all times, he added:

“And uptil today, that consensus of the Ummah (regarding the punishment of ‘false prophets’ and their followers) has been established and it is alive and it is thriving.”