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as-salaam ‘alaykum wa rahmat Allahi wa baraktahu,
Let me say from the start, I am against the persecution of Ahmadis. Not only is it morally wrong, evil and unjust, it undermines the da’wah efforts of the Muslim to the Ahmadis. No Ahmadi centers should be destroyed, no Ahmadi should be insulted, and no Ahmadi should be prevented from declaring the Shahada (Kalima). I would personally defend any Ahmadi who was being attacked by a Muslim simply because he was an Ahmadi.
Having said that, is their persecution really as bad as they portray it? Lets objectively analyze.
Facts According to ThePersecution.org
Are they really persecuted? In 2001, the Ahmadis declared that their population was 200 million worldwide. That is roughly ~20% of all Muslims. Considering their alleged massive population, and outcry of terrible persecution, one would expect the number of murders of the Ahmadis to be in the range of 100,000 – 150,000 innocent people. But, according to their own statistics from the year 2000, the number of Ahmadis murdered was 12. Yes, 12. Don’t get me wrong, each soul is precious. But, given their international outcry of horific persecution, I honestly expected a little more than 12. In 2001, the figure dropped to 9. In 2002 it dropped to only 4. Again in 2003, the figure decreased again to 2. [They did not report any figures by year after 2003]
If we go by the figures they provide, from 2000 to 2003, the number of innocent Ahmadis murdered only for their faith was 0.0000135% of their total population.
In 2003, they reported that the number of charges brought against Ahmadis exclusively based on their religion increased 376% from the previous year. 376%, huge increase right? Not necessarily. If you have 2 reports in year one, and you increase that to 4 reports in year two, it is a 100% increase. I’m sure you can see where I am going with this. A 376% increase does not mean anything when your figures are low to begin with.
Recently, Dr. Abdul Mannan Siddiqui, a medical doctor from the US was murdered. I stand with the Ahmadis in condemning his murder. But, notice how widespread this story has become. Any Ahmadi who even marginally attends their services has heard about it. Why? Because it is such a rare occurrence that when it happens, it is big news. Everyone knows about it.
Compared to Muslims
I remember as a child in Ramadhan, during the Witr of Taraweeh, the Imam would recite “Allahuma ‘Aizz al-Islaama wa al-Muslimeen fi Soomal, wa Kashmir, wa Falasteen wa Sheshaan” meaning “O Allah, [give] honor to Islam and the Muslims in Somalia, and Kashmir and Palestine and Chechnya.” Every year the number of countries on that list grew and grew until he just says “fi kulli makaan” meaning “in every locality”.
Look at Palestine. The number of Palestinians who die from Israeli state terrorism in one month alone exceeds the entire number of Ahmadis killed from 2000 to 2003. After the two Chechen Wars, 12% of the entire Chechen ethnic group was dead. In the mid 90s during the Bosnian wars, roughly 38,000 Bosnians died. Don’t even get me started on the mass rapes. Ya Allah, in Iraq, roughly 96,000 of our brothers and sisters died as a direct result of my country’s military (I am an American) since the war started (and that figure is considered very low, only what can be confirmed). If I keep looking up statistics, I will start weeping.
Its not just about Deaths
The Ahmadis could argue that actual loss of life is not the only metric to measure persecution. It manifests itself in many forms, social and legal, sometimes in very subtle ways, etc. That’s absolutely true. But, even then, can the Ahmadis claim to have been more persecuted than the Muslims? In 2003, they claim 23 Ahmadis were subjected to miscellaneous laws against their faith and 17 Ahmadis were in prison by the end of the year. Now consider just one city in Palestine, where the residents undergo daily abuse by the Israeli terrorists; preventing them water, sexually abusing young women, beating the young men, making them wait long hours in endless lines to travel short distances, random searches, destruction of infrastructure, etc, etc. The suffering from one small village alone in Palestine is worse than the entire Ahmadi population combined.
Motivation
I believe there are two reasons why the Ahmadis dramatize their persecution.
First, it acts as a tool to keep members in their religion. Communities under considerable, but not extreme pressure tend to unify and grow stronger. By extreme pressure, I mean like European Jewry in the 1930s and 40s. By considerable pressure, I mean African-Americans from the 20s to 60s, when the Black Nationalist movements begun. The Ahmadis have exploited their sense of persecution to build and strengthen their communal bonds.
Second, there is a hadith that says those upon the truth will follow the way of the Prophet and his companions. The Ahmadis interpret this to mean those who are persecuted as the earliest Muslims were persecuted. So, if they can show that they are persecuted, they argue, it is proof that they are upon the Truth. There are obvious problems with this. First, “following the way of the prophet” refers to his Sunnah, not being subject to abuses by others. Second, the earliest Muslims did not sit back and vercify their suffering. Sabr (patience) was only the first stage. They migrated to Madinah, took up arms and fought back against the Quraysh (and not all battles were defensive). With that aside, even if we use their interpretations, the Muslims are far far more persecuted, even per capita, than the Ahmadis worldwide. If that is their interpretation of the Hadith, then it is clear that Islam is the Truth and Ahmadiyya is falsehood.
May Allah stop and punish those who bring even the slightest bit of harm against the Ahmadis and may He guide the Ahmadis to Islam.
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Ameen to your prayers Farhan. And thanks for clarifying your position.
You have made some assumptions in your article that I disagree with. For example, Ahmadis do not claim that they are persecuted all over the world. We are very happy that our African brothers and those living in the Western countries enjoy full religious freedom and are spreading the message of Islam without any hurdles. The problem coutnries are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and to some degree India where bigots hold sway over muslim majority areas.
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia have legalized the persecution of Ahmadis. These countires combined have a majority of muslim population of the world and thus are guilty of persecuting on behalf of their citizens. The laws in Pakistan are so stupid, that you can’t find their example anywhere in history.
Secondly, you have compared the persecution of Ahmadis to Jewsih or Afro-american persection. This is not a valid comparison. Ahmadis are not persecuted because of their color or race. They are persecuted for their beliefs. And it is this persecution which results in their growth. The most apt comparison will be the persecution of Muslims in Makkah.
P.S., the whole population of Rabwah has been booked under the Ordinance XX at least once.
FWIW Farhan, I back your position 100%.
@Islam976, you have ignored the bigger issue of Muslims being far more persecuted by several orders of magnitude as compared to Qadianis. More diversion I see…
Shahid, Farhan,
If the root cause of the suffering of Muslims in the world is their faith, then I condemn it as much as I condemn the Ahmadi persecution. You see, I will condemn the persecution of all human beings regardless of the reason. I condemn the burning of Churches in India, to killing of Jews by Nazi Germany.
Ahmadis are being persecuted in a very different way then any other community. Whenever the word Ahmadis is mentioned on any forum, the muslims are very quick to respond with the “consensus” that Ahmadis are not muslims. This is a persecution on behalf of the whole muslim nation. Unless you speak out against this, you have a share in this consensus. At the next level, governments have used the same consensus to put in places laws to ban the activities of the community. This persecution again is the responsibility of all those who are unanimous in opposing the Jamaat. Then you have the tip of the iceberg. The violence against the community. The violence is justified on the basis of this so-called consensus which absolves the criminals of their crimes. Which is not condemned by the leadership at any level.
As for the persecution of muslims, the reasons are numerous. And yes, their muslim faith is a part of it. But, how many palestinians are being killed because they want to preach and practice their faith? How many Iraqis have been tortured because they wanted to build a mosque or recite the Kalima? The attrocities against the muslims are done in the name of democracy and freedom. The cause is power struggle and money and oil. There is a difference, if only you could see.
islam976, I think you brought up some valid points, specifically by focusing the persecution to a few countries. You seemed to downplay it. I was going to include a section titled “Pakistan is not the world”, pointing out that the vast majority of their cases are from Pakistan.
I was not comparing the persecution of the Ahmadis to world Jewry in the 30s, I was giving an example of a cohesive community that was destroyed due to persecution. If you take issue with a specific example, I would be happy to find another, but the idea is more around group dynamics than racial vs religious. I hope this is not an issue. I think the most similar persecution would be the Baha’i of Iran, not the Muslims in Makkah. The Makkans did not profess Islam, whereas the Baha’i believe in the Qur’an.
Either way, lets focus on the repercussions:
A) One of the reasons Ahmadis refuse to pray behind Muslims is because they argue Muslims persecuted Ahmadis for so long. It makes this reason invalid. [the other is that we don't accept 'Imam-e-Zaman' and I think makes more sense]
B) It invalidates the Ahmadi agenda of excessively dramatizing their persecution, and using it as a proof of their validity. I hope you see how, if anything, this proves Islam over Ahmadiyya.
Bahais beleive in Quran? Yeah right! Why do they have a modern scripture abrogating many clear Quranic commandments and issuing new ones? You can not compare Bahai faith with Ahmadi muslims.
Ahmadis do not pray behind a non-ahmadi Imam. It is correct on both counts. The persecution is based on Takfeer. So you can not differentiate between them.
Islam976, look at it from this perspective.
The Baha’i openly say that Muhammad SAAWS is a Prophet of Allah, and openly say that they believe that the Qur’an is the word of Allah. But, they interpret the Qur’an totally differently, in ways it has NEVER been understood before, and reinterpret it to agree to their theology. Therefore, while they outwardly tote the Qur’an, from our perspectives (you and i) they do not believe in it. They have their own texts (Kitaab al-Maqdis) which forces them to reinterpret the Qur’an to their new ideas. They have their own Prophet Baha’i-Allah.
From the Muslims perspective, Ahmadis are the same way. They outwardly tote the Qur’an, but interpret it in ways it has NEVER been understood before. They reinterpret verses which have *ALWAYS* been understood a certain way to mean something radically different, so from the Muslims’ perspective, they do not believe in the Qur’an. They have their own religious texts (ie, Roohani Khuzain, etc) which forces them to reinterpret the Qur’an to their own ideology. They have their own Prophet: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
We make Takfeer on both of them as deviant off-shoot groups and call them both to the Islam of the Prophet Muhammad SAAWS and the Sahaba.
btw, both use many of the same arguments for the continuation of prophets, ie 4:70.
Correction: Kitaab al-Aqdis is the book of the Baha’i
Islam976
Have you forgotten that Mirza Ghulam have also abrogated Jihad and introduced chanda against the Qur’anic commands? Mirza claimed to have received ilham while doing sex with Yalesh which is against Qur’an. Mirza claimed to be like son of God which is against Qur’an. Mirza claimed to have seen God in human form which is against Qur’an.
Why do you cry over Takfeers when your Mirza and Khalifas have also made the similar takfeers over all Muslims?
there is a hadith that says that 99% of muslims will go to hell beware of that
your Ulemas fear that hadith very much
WHY???????
can you show us and provide reference which hadith says that 99% muslims will go to hell?
The real issue is that Ahmadis have been brainwashed too much by their murabbis. Hence they only repeat what the murabbis teach them. As you can see most of their arguments are the same and lack the true knowledge of Islam. They have been taught to blindly follow MGA as a prophet, mahdi and reformer (God forbid) and keep paying the Chanda.