I was amused to see the Mirzologists resort to advertising to push their support for illegal, imperialist wars in the run-in to the general election. It’s probably no accident that just a week after the transparently straw-man outfit “Islam4UK” got banned for talking about wanting to demonstrate against a war of occupation, that Shahid Malik MP, a man who would sooner pronounce an oath of fealty to Gordon Brown than the shahadah, should be backing a campaign by the Ahmadiyya that would make even “Muslims for Secular Democracy” blush.

Indeed, Shahid Malik, with whom it embarrasses me to share my first name, said

“[the community]…can be proud of their commitment in championing the themes of ‘loyalty, freedom, equality, respect’ and ‘peace’ – themes which help build stronger, more cohesive communities.”

If Shahid Malik thinks that the Mirzologists want anything to do with the Muslim community, he’s utterly misguided. As a trivial example, I’ll mention that an Ahmadi recently walked unquestioned into the mosque and questioned me openly( and was treated with courtesy) at Tooting Islamic Centre, where I gave a talk recently, but that any Muslim trying to get into Baitul Futuh, their centre in Morden, will get questioned remorselessly by their security guards and evicted if he wants to have a discussion armed with any of the facts about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, their founder who was fond of calling his opponents “bastards” and “progeny of harlots”. Not the kind of thing that was ever conducive to good community relations, I think you’ll agree. In fact, a friend of mine who was Ahmadi visited the Baitul-Futuh, his own place of worship at the time, and he was questioned rudely. He walked out and walked into Islam. Alhamdulillah!

As a less trivial example, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya, cast out the whole of the Ummah from Islam, declaring them hellbound and satanic, whilst stealing the labels of Islam for himself and his cronies. Again, hardly conducive to good community relations. Malik is going to find it very hard to get support from his Muslim constituents in future. (Good luck with the handful of Ahmadi votes, Shahid. I hope it was worth it!)

And so it appears that the widely discredited Quilliam Foundation is gradually being eased out of the current administration’s affections as the “House Paki” du jour by the Ahmadiyya. Except that the Government has misjudged again. The Ahmadiyya does not represent Muslims at all. The Ahmadiyya is no more than 2M worldwide as opposed to the Muslims, who number in excess of 1.5 billion, growing faster than any other religion today. The Mirzology membership figures go up and down an order of magnitude from one week to the next without explanation. Their true membership in the UK is no more than 40,000, a figure which hasn’t changed significantly since the 1980s, casting doubt onto their claim that they are the most “dynamic” denomination, and it’s a figure that pales into insignificance next to the 1.6M+ Muslims of the UK. Mirzologists are useful to the government only as lapdogs, a pattern that the Ahmadiyya has followed since their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be Jesus’ second coming. Indeed, Masroor said in their bus pass message yesterday:

“A true Muslim can never raise his voice in hatred against his fellow citizens, nor for that matter against the ruling authority or government of the time…he should remain loyal and fully abide by the laws of the land of which he is a subject.”

Other than the fact that a Muslim cannot be a Muslim if (s)he believes in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet, this is just waffle without meaning. Mirzologists regularly raise their voices in hatred against Muslims. Of course that won’t bother Shahid Malik and it certainly won’t bother the Labour Government, because that’s what they have been trying to achieve themselves for the last few years, starting with Jack Straw’s comments on the niqab. And speaking truth to power is Islamic. Although the Mirzologists are happy to show ample disrespect towards Pakistan, they are the perfect “House Paki” for toeing the party line on the misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and every other Muslim country we invade and destroy.

Any time there is a non-incident, like Islam4UK talking about a legal march that everybody knew wouldn’t happen, the Mirzologists are first to jump on the “that’s not Islam” bandwagon, but whenever Muslims are murdered around the world, the Mirzologists are silent. Silent that is except on various forums and in their houses, where they express utter delight that the Muslims are getting what was coming to them.

Meanwhile, Brits of all persuasions, Muslim or not, brown or not, are united against oppression, and voice their opinions loudly. The Mirzologists are mute. Why? Because their vision of loyalty is not loyalty to an ideal of democracy or freedom of speech, but loyalty to power.

Muslims speak truth to power by direct command of the prophet who said:

“The best jihad is to speak the truth in the face of a tyrant.”

This is what Muslims do. This is what the best of the British do. This isn’t what Mirza Ghulam Ahmad taught and so it isn’t part of the Ahmadiyya ethos. I’ve never known of Ahmadis being encouraged to engage in a peaceful protest about war, whether it be the famous march against the Iraq debacle, or the recent onslaught against the innocent civilian population of Gaza. Indeed, when I’ve asked a scholarly Ahmadi about this, he affirmed that Palestinian kids die because they didn’t accept Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as the Promised Christ. I kid you not.

Dissent against tyranny is the way Muslims roll.

It’s the way decent people in this country and in other countries roll. It’s lending your voice to the oppressed, which the prophets have done since time immemorial. The hucksters, like Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, were busy bootlicking Queen Victoria while her forces raped India and bled her dry. But never mind that, eh? Let’s get a message out on some buses about what good “house pakis” we are!

Other than the sheer cringe factor in seeing a non-Muslim entity like the Mirzologists of the Ahmadiyya tout themselves as Muslims on a double decker, there is also the preponderance of thought-stopping slogans to contend with.

“Loyalty, Freedom & Peace”

Loyalty? Of course Muslims are loyal. I wrote about that in 2006 in a widely read piece. (Warning, those were the days I used very bad language in my writing. I stopped over a year ago, but if you can tolerate filthy language, it’s still a very good piece about the loyalty of Muslims, demonstrated empirically by the University of Lancaster. And no, I doubt they spoke to the Mirzologists.)

Freedom? Not for their members.

Peace? Not towards dissidents or people who leave the oppressive, repressive cult that doesn’t allow free speech to its members.

I’m reminded of Orwell:

Treachery is Loyalty
Oppression is Freedom
Tumult is Peace

Their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wasn’t a pleasant man. He was certainly treacherous towards Muslims. There is even some evidence that he was hypocritical in his stance about his British rulers.

He was certainly oppressive, conducting a vicious advertising campaign against a married woman, prophesying death for her family members and husband and eventual marriage to him, publishing “revelations” of seeing her naked, all of which only stopped when he got a taste of his own medicine. One wonders why his “god” stopped talking to him then.

And he certainly caused tumult, effectively destroying community relations between his cult members and Hindus and Christians, especially after a Hindu leader, Pandit Lekh Ram got mysteriously murdered after a Mirza prophecy and when Abdullah Atham, a Christian convert from Islam, went into hiding to avoid the likely outcome of another of Mirza’s death threats. Mirza was eventually given a gag order and forced to stop predicting the deaths of his opponents. His “god” had been prevented from revealing death for people. How interesting.

Our attention is then turned towards their hippy slogan of “Love for All, Hatred for None”. As has been proven over and over, their hatred shows no bounds. Their membership uses hateful language towards all Muslims. They gloated about the Pakistan earthquake, saying that no Mirzologist died, and that Pakistan and Kashmir had been punished for killing some Mirzologists a few days earlier. They said that the tsunami in Indonesia, which killed hundreds of thousands, was because that country rejected the second coming of Jesus Christ; you’ve guessed it, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is the man the Mirzologists claim is Jesus.

Yet another messiah claimant to add to the long line of fruit cakes and impostors that Jesus and Muhammad (peace and prayers be on them both) warned us about.

I don’t really have a problem with the advert or its contents, other than the fact that the Ahmadiyya doesn’t speak for Islam, as according to universal Muslim consensus, Mirzology is a cult that lies outside Islam. What I have a problem with is the Ahmadiyya hypocrisy. They should lay bare their true teachings and practices, warts and all – show the world the repressive and hateful cult that they are. Or at least change their slogan to one that is truly reflective of their values:

Love for All (imperialists)

Hatred for None (bar Muslims and many of their own members)