Criticizing Islam

Ahmadi Muslims are at the forefront of the fight against radicalization.
Image Courtesy The Guardian Website

In his article in the Times entitled ‘Stand up for the right to criticize Islam’ Matt Ridley writes that there is a spectrum of religious beliefs, from spiritual to the violent extreme.  Ridley, himself a humanist, is skeptical even of the power of a moderate form of religion to bring about social justice and peace.

Ridley takes issue with PM May’s statement that terrorist acts are a ‘perversion of the great faith of Islam’. He thinks that Khalid Masood was follower of a version of Islam (not a perversion) and we must accept that as a fact. The religion of Islam must be criticized for its faults.

He then cites the oppression of women, homosexuals and suppression of science by religions (primarily Islam) to prove that religion has nothing good to offer to the society, and such practises do not deserve any respect.

I agree wholeheartedly. Well said Mr. Ridley!  If this is Islam, then I, a practicing Muslim myself will stand with you and criticize it.

But the question is; to whom should we address this criticism? God?  Prophet Muhammad? Saudi Royals? Irani Ayatollahs? Your neighbour who happens to be a Muslim?

I personally would address it to the clerics who have for generations misrepresented the scriptures, providing various violent political movements with religious sanctions to commit atrocities. As I am a Muslim who reads and understands the Quran, I will also take a position based on knowledge, not prejudice.  I know for a fact that this violent interpretation represents a fictitious faith born out of malice, human misery and selfish desires of the clergy. It is not Islam.

Mr. Ridley himself agrees.  He says, ‘The one thing they (terrorists) have in common is that they had been radicalized by religious preachers claiming to interpret the Koran.’

As my criticism has a clear target, Ridley like many others has erred in finding the right language, tone or even logic to address the issue of Islamist violent extremism.  In many cases, there is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the facts in favour of a deeply cynical and malevolent narrative against Islam.

This is largely due to their lack of knowledge about Islam and partly due to the traditional European indoctrination against Islam. Islam has always been a ‘pretend’ religion which had nothing new to offer to the world as Pope Benedict let slip a few years ago. All the classical European historic texts take the standard stance that Prophet Muhammad was an impostor, and Muslims were a conquering force which threatened Europe for centuries. That reptilian fear reflex has been embedded so deep in the European psyche that even the atheist scholars of today can’t help this knee jerk reaction.

Take for example Mr. Ridley mentioning over 400 acid attacks in Britain. He thinks that it has something to do with sharia-enabled men disfiguring women all across the country.  The fact is that this heinous practice was a British invention, exported to other parts of the world, including the Indian subcontinent.  Most victims come from Colombia and India. But unfortunately, people have associated it with Islam. Was this an easy mistake to make? Perhaps you will think twice before calling FGM an Islamic practice. Or perhaps not!

 It is more convenient to support bigotry with fake facts these days. What about those 400 or so acid attack victims you may ask? These were mostly gang related incidents and majority of them were men. Acid attacks and FGM, just like terrorism, have nothing to do with Islam. It is all about politics, sexual and territorial, as well as that of identity. 

When it comes to people seeking the license to mock religions and their founders, Islam becomes the obvious focus of attention.  People are being killed around the Islamic world for criticizing Islam. This is also another gross perversion of Islamic teachings. It is the clerics who perpetuate these ideas, and there is no evidence, none whatsoever in the Quran to support such barbaric acts. I, like millions of my Ahmadiyya Muslim brothers and sisters around the world, criticize these clerics and their followers with proofs, arguments and with grace.  For us, Islam is free from all blame just as the God that we worship and the Prophet (Peace be upon Him) that we love and follow.

My sincere advice to Mr. Ridley and his fellow commentators is to join us in our 125 year old campaign to reform Muslims by understanding Islam and initiating a dialogue with those we disagree. Ridicule, fake facts and divisive Islamophobic propaganda is not the solution.

Bigotry in the UK

I visit the northern English city of Bradford often, famous for its redundant textile mills and a large Pakistani diaspora which settled here thanks to the mills. These mills offered employment to the many thousands of Kashmiri, Potoharis and Bengalis who flocked here in the 60s and 70s.

A shocking haircut!

Now Bradford is a bustling town which has a lot to offer. Curries, Asian clothing, cheap motor repairs and all the desi groceries you can imagine...and religious bigotry.

A few months ago, expecting a quick haircut, I stepped into a barbershop on Great Horton Road. This road is famous for its fine Pakistani restaurants and sweet shops. Two young men  were busy clipping away on the heads of their customers. While waiting for my turn, I looked around to find something to read. The local newspaper, a magazine, or a special treat; maybe an Urdu language digest that can be found in these establishments often. While scanning the table top, I spotted something familiar. It was the picture of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. It was on a pamphlet entitled 'Beware, the impostor of Qadian'.

As an Ahmadi Muslim, the sight of this pamphlet and its wording sickened me to the core. I looked at the young kids who ran the shop and considered my options. They look like your typical British Pakistani kids. Slingy jeans, wacky hair cuts and facial hair which seemed like drawn on with a fine pencil, listening to loud music of the urban variety. Not your madrassah qualified maulvis by any stretch of imagination.

Should I ask them why they are displaying such materials in a place of business? Should I threaten them with a report to the police? Or should I just ask them why they felt it necessary to share their religious bigotries to their customers? Was it left by someone? If yes, why did they not remove it?

I didn't do any of that. I just got up and left. As a visitor to the city, I thought that the more meaningful course of action would be to make my acquaintances in Bradford aware of this and recommend reporting this to the police.

A similar incidence happened in London. In my local Pakistani grocery shop someone had placed similar literature. They were promptly challenged by an Ahmadi and the shop owner after learning that most of the local Ahmadis shopped there, wisely removed the offensive materials. His excuse was that someone had placed them there without his knowledge.

Do all homegrown terrorists start as armchair takfiris?

A few years back, an anti-radicalization police representative called upon our local Ahmadi community. He inform us that the police are a bit concerned about the clandestine activities of a local salafist group who are publishing hate materials on a website against other communities, Ahmadis being one of them. He thought that these groups represent the final steps before they engage in real terrorist activities like going to the training camps run by al-Qaeda. These were pre-ISIS/Daesh days when Al-Qaeda was the main recruiter of terrorists from the western world.

The war on terror had its repercussions on the domestic front in the West as well. When suicide bombers of Pakistani origin blew themselves up on London's tubes and buses, the British government found itself in a tricky situation. Curbing the activities of clerics qualified in Pakistani or South African seminaries was impossible due to political sensitivities.

The 'Luton' incidence.

An example of this was seen in 2014 in Luton, another town with a large Pakistani population of mainly Barelvi variety. When the local Ahmadiyya Muslim community decided to take out newspaper adverts to mark 125 years since the establishment of the Ahmadiyya Caliphate, the newspaper offices were visited by a delegation of local clerics who forced the paper to publish an apology in their next edition for referring to Ahmadis as Muslims. This was such a ridiculous situation that it was picked up by the national press and media. The resulting controversy further reinforced the public perception about Muslims being intolerant and a constant source of problems for the British society.

Luton's Ahmadis then tried to organize an event, a peace conference to clear the air. The local labour member of Parliament excused himself from the event, even though the elections were looming and he could do with a few votes. But he had the votes from the majority of non-Ahmadi Muslims so he found it more convenient to ignore the invitation. Politics indeed is a fickle affair.

I also wrote about this controversy in my blog here.

Halal life in a Haram society:

London's mayoral hopeful for the Labour Party is Sadiq Khan. He is also a senior labour leader and a member of parliament. He has a good chance of winning the elections. His constituency is also the home of a well known Deobandi mosque, Tooting Islamic Center. One of its Imams, Suliman Gani is a well known supporter of Sadiq Khan, a campaigner for the Guantanamo detainees and more importantly an anti-Ahmadiyya campaigner in the city. Tooting and the surrounding areas have a large Ahmadi Muslim presence. They have built the largest mosque in Western Europe in Morden not far from Tooting.

Back in 2010, Imam Gani headed a campaign to boycott a shop which was owned by Ahmadis. He declared the meat sold in the shop might not be halal (despite the fact the shops' supplier dealt with halal meat only).

There have also been more serious incidents in the same area, including literature containing the fatwa of death for Ahmadis and physical assault on someone who was merely suspected of being an Ahmadi.

Such attitudes can only be explained as a collective psychoses of religious bigotry which does not reconcile with the eagerness of such people to live in a non-Muslim society. Such extremes and contradictions eventually result in turning many second generation immigrants into extremists - Some of whom may travel to join Daesh, Al-Shabab or Al-Qaeda.

The visiting ulema and peers:

Many of my elders have confirmed this observation about the clerics. It is that Ahmadiyya Islam was a biggest threat to the livelihood of Maulvis (clerics) in the subcontinent, so anti-Ahmadiyya agitations became their new business. And ironically, it is destined to remain their livelihood as long as Ahmadiyyat keeps flourishing.

United kingdom has been a destination for mainly poorly educated, rural class of Muslims from Pakistan. They had to import their religious teachers and scholars from back home - a trend which continues to date. In comparison, countries like Canada and Australia who have invited the skilled migrants from around the Muslim world have a large number of clerics who speak English as their first language.

Sadly, the clerics who have made UK their home, or visit annually for the benefit of their followers spread across the UK, also bring with them the bigotries that have been their bread and butter back home. If anything, the business of the 'protection of the finality of Prophethood' has been a lucrative activity for the Pakistani and Bangladeshi clerics. They have successfully applied the same business model in this country. Several ethnic religious TV channels regularly spew hatred against the Ahmadis using premium rate phone lines and frequent charity appeals. All of them have been reprimanded or fined by the UK's regulators for hate speech and defamation. They tone down their language after a slap to the wrist, but make sure that their audience get the message of takfir of Ahmadis loud and clear. And in return, they earn brownie points for protecting the faith and fill their coffers with revenue from the charity donations.

It is ironic that the same freedom of speech which is denied to Ahmadis in Pakistan is utilized fully by the clerics in the UK to persecute them.

One outlet, the Barelvi oriented Ahle-sunnat organization boasts of holding 35 Khatme Nabuwwat conferences in the UK to date. A Bangali Deobandi mosque in Bradford has held 19 so far.

The largest conglomerate of Islamic organizations in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain has also issued statemetns to the national media to stress that Ahmadis are not Muslims. This organization has many prominent supporters among the British politicians, and has in its ranks a Knight of the British Empire (Sir Iqbal Sacranie) who served as its secretary general.

Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Academy in London. Yes. It looks like a shop.

In addition to these, the resident Khatm-en-Nabuwwat coordinator in Lodnon is Maulana Sohail Bawa, who has strong links to the Pakistan based Alami-Majlis-e-Tahaffuz Khatm-e-Nabuwwat (AMTKN), an organization which has never hidden its ideological affiliation to the banned ASWJ and Sipah-e-Sahaba outfits. These are Bawa has made a career out of anti-Ahmadi polemics in the UK and travels to other western countries to speak at mosques regularly.

Another celebrity cleric, much in demand these days, is Allam Tahirul Qadri. With many tall claims of having destroyed Ahmadi doctrines in public debates and converting thousands of Ahmadis to Islam, the Allama has spoken at various Khatm-e-Nabuwwat conferences in the UK in recent years. His speeches are carefully worded so as not to distort his already questionable credentials with the British authorities.

Multan and Karachi based leadership of the AMTKN pay occasional visits to the UK in their bid to chase the Qadiani's out of every country of the world. Most of their efforts although, are to collect funds for one charitable cause or the other. The main selling point - to protect the oft-attacked, the most vulnerable and the most fundamental - Finality of the Prophethood.

You probably have heard of Mumtaz Qadri, a Pakistani policeman who murdered the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer because he was deemed a blasphemer by the clergy. Qadri handed himself to the police and was lauded as a hero by many. A true believer and a real soldier of Islam, a 'ghazi'. After his execution by hanging, millions mourned his death. Some clerics in the UK also took to the airways and openly declared their disgust at the exectuion. I could understand if they were arguing against the idea of death penalty, but that wasn't the case. They were preaching to their audience that blasphemy is a crime punishable by death and Qadri was just doing his religious duty.

The unlikeliest of allies - The far-right white folk and the brown immigrants:

English defense league is/was a far-right movement of mainly English hooligans who have been active in recent years all across the country. They organize marches and rallies and most importantly, they are not known for their intellectual prowess. They usually hold threatening protests if a new mosque is being planned or built in any area. UKIP, another anti-immigrant party facilitates the opposition to such mosques through political means. It is very common that if a mosque is being refused permission in an area, it is due to underlying tensions caused by such right wing activism.

A story made headlines in the local British papers a few years ago. Wallsall council, under pressure from the local residents refused the building of an Ahmadi Mosque. I assumed that it must have been pressure from the right wing groups and xenophobic residents. Until I saw a picture of the local residents smiling for the cameras after the decision was announced. All of them were Pakistani Muslims.

EDL, after learning of their protest, decided to cancel their plans to descend on this town to show their disgust.

Ahmadis in Scunthorpe, Yorkshire also want to build a mosque, but a number of complaints were raised by the locals. All of them were Muslims of Pakistani origins. Some of them even turned up to protest against it. The local council was wise enough to spot the real agenda behind the anti-mosque campaign and approved the plans.

Scunthorpe Mosque being opposed by a group of 'Muslims'

Walsall Ahmadis, like Scunthorpe Ahmadis, eventually got their mosque plans approved. Currently there is an investigation going on by the local police on a brick attack on the newly built mosque.

Could it be a racist neo-Nazi?

Could it be a Muslim kid who knows Ahmadis to be disgusting kafirs worthy of such violence and more? It is anybody's guess.

How to Block a Mosque

The website Mosqueblock offers a wide range of advice on how to fight mosque planning applications.

It asks its readers to steer clear of stating any racial or religious reasons while objecting to the mosque plans at their local council.

In a recent news announcement, it states

‘Our message to you is to get organised , and use the council planning process to your advantage. It`s your community , and your choice. Silence implies assent !!’

The site runs a methodical breakdown of a mosque blocking project.

‘Do your homework!!’, it says.

‘Its time to run your street petition’.

‘Speak to the local residents’

‘Don’t bother with the MPs, they will only refer you back to the council’.

Some articles go in great detail on describing the planning permission applications, the hearings and how to effectively present an Anti-Mosque case.

The site also features news on the recent ‘victories’ by various local residents who have successfully petitioned and campaigned against new Mosques in various British towns and cities.

Great News!

The latest news is from the town of Halesowen, where residents rejoice at the rejection of a plan to add minarets and a dome to the Baitul Ghafoor Mosque, run by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association.

The local paper, Worcester News thinks that the Mosque organizers may have considered the anti-mosque campaign to be racist in nature.

When I read further, I read a disgruntled local woman resenting the fact that she has been branded a racist for only speaking her mind.

What were the remarks Dr. Muhammad Ashraf which may have insinuated racist motivations behind this organized campaign? A campaign supported by the local councilors, but mostly by UKIP's Stuart Henley.

Dr. Ashraf had only said that the locals misunderstood the religion of Islam and that may have caused their opposition to the Mosque.

If anything, Dr. Ashraf suggested that Islamophobia is a fuelling the campaign, not racism.

One of the petitions signed by dozens of residents states

‘Local residents will be very unhappy to be overlooked by the minarets’ and ‘the logical progression might be loudspeakers for calls to prayer…five times a day’

Having seen the proposed maps of the changes, it appears that both the dome and the minaret were only symbolic to identify the building as a mosque. No Muezzin was to go up the minaret five times a day for call to prayers, neither was there any plans to use loudspeakers on them.

Obviously the objectors had imagined their neighborhood turning into down-town Istanbul within days of the minarets going up.

Almost every petition against the Mosque stated that the change will not be in keeping with the local area.

‘It will be totally out of character for this part of Halesowen North’. Writes Councillor Hillary Bills.

‘Despite being progressive, are we to disregard our heritage for a welcome?’ Asks one gentleman

But, why can’t you accept a Mosque as a new addition to your heritage? There are Mosques in this country which can truly be called heritage buildings. Fazl Mosque in Southfields or Shah Jehan Mosque in Woking are two such examples.

Fazl Mosque. The first Mosque built in London is almost 100 years old

Would you allow an alteration to the building if the Minarets were in line with the architecture of the building and in keeping with the surrounding area? Or is it the idea of the Minaret, symbolizing a Mosque which bothers you?

Then there is the argument that in this day and age Mosque do not need to have any identifying features, as Mr. Henly (of UKIP) argues on his facebook page.

Mosques are not only spaces for worship; they are also converging points for a Muslim community. They are part of their identity. A Muslim is required to attend the mosque five times a day. Just as you cannot ask a bearded Jewish or Muslim man to do away with facial hair, just as you cannot tell a nun or a hijab wearing lady to discard their head covering, you cannot tell Muslims what their mosques should look like. (I am hoping that I am right in my assumption of tolerance here)

Yes, aesthetics are also very important, and keeping the building in harmony with its surroundings is a matter of common sense, but refusing to allow minarets is an extreme act.

Pakistani Government does not allow Ahmadi Muslims (who own the Halesowen Mosque) to build Mosques which look like Mosques as it hurts the sentiments of the Muslims.

Should a Mosque not have its identifying features? Yes, you can put up a signboard in front of any building to call it anything you like, but is that aesthetically pleasing?

The problem here is that the British people are being fed a constant diet of suspicion, hatred and paranoia by the media and various political interests.

According to the How to block a Mosque Course 101, the objectors should ask questions

‘Where would worshipers park?

Is there any on site parking?

How many will attend?

And at what times of the day?’

And sure enough, some Halesowen residents suggested that the minarets will attract more traffic in the street.

Minarets don’t emit homing beacons for any cars carrying Muslim drivers to converge at that spot. It is already a functioning Mosque, having minarets won’t change the attendance levels.

One comment summarizes it all for me. One lady, who apparently works in a Muslim majority school, opined that she knows about ‘their faith’, and she knows that the minarets are for cosmetic reasons only.

It appears that everyone in Halesowen have an opinion on how its Muslims residents should practice their faith, apart for those Muslims who wish to worship in the Baitul Ghafoor Mosque.

Freedom of Speech and the Islamophobes.

Harris Zafar of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, USA is an excellent writer and a Jihadist in the true sense of the word. His Jihad is to spread the true and peaceful teachings of Islam to his homeland and to the wider world through his writings.

In this struggle, he has invited many critics. Some from within the Muslim community who consider his Ahmadi faith as heretical, but the most vocal and hateful criticism comes from the American Ultra-Conservative Islamophobes. One of them, Andrew E. Harrod writes that in his latest article, that Harris fails to make any sense. To Harod, Islam is a unique case of a false faith which invaded, forcibly converted and occupied almost half of the world for a whole millennium. Harris Zafar's attempts to explain the misdeeds of despots and extremist clerics as unislamic are futile.

The tragedy with this type of Islamophobia is that it does not recognize reform within Islam as a genuine phenomenon. Their hateful propaganda has unfortunately been supported by the actions of the medievalist Islamists. For people like Harris and me, and all the other moderate Muslims the cult of Robert Spencer and the cult of Suicide bomber share the same view of history. Both of them see stories of violence in some history books as true and both of them reject reform and tolerance.

Harrod repeats the same distorted historic 'evidence' of killing of blasphemers and apostates during the time of the Prophet which is so common in Islamophobe literature. He also cites the same injustices being carried out in countries where despotic regimes are in control.

We cannot deny that some history books do mention events where alleged blasphemers and apostate were killed. At least this is how the orthodox Muslims understand them. As is the case with any scripture or historic narrative, readers can super-impose their own whims on the text to interpret it as they wish. So if OBL or Robert Spencer want to read the story of Kaab ibn Ashraf as an example of killing of a blasphemer, they will make every effort to ignore the fact that Ibn Ashraf was in direct contact with the leaders of Quraish and was posing a direct threat to the lives of the inhabitants of Medina. Similarly, Mr. Harrod, Spencer et al., will be happy to accept the story of Asma bint Marwan several others as true whereas Islamic scholars of Hadith have declared those narrations as fabricated or weak.

Fabricated events cannot become real just because Saudi Arabia is beheading and Iranian regime is condemning people for apostasy and blasphemy. There were hoardes of crucaders killing innocent women and children in the name of Christ. There are Jews killing unarmed civilians in the name of David and Moses. Can I start being disrespectful of these Prophets of God? Should a cartoonist be asked to portray these evil acts with Jesus, Moses and David as the subjects of these images? I am sure someone, somewhere is capable of doing this. But as a decent human being, I will abhor such 'art' as disrespectful, unfair and slanderous.

As human beings, we need laws and rules to regulate how society should behave. A line needs to be drawn where freedom of speech can turn into a license to cause offence, to stir up hatred and eventually violence in a society.

There is no confusion in Islam about freedom of conscience and expression. The real confusion is in the minds of Islamophobes who feel that their only weapon will be taken away if a law was enforced to curb their bigotry and naked hate.

I wish Harris all the best in his struggle against Islamophobia in the USA. It is the struggle for the triumph of real Islam, which will put an end to all persecution, war and bloodshed InshaAllah.