A friend of mine is Muslim of the Ahmadi sect, and he's Pakistani. Today happens to be Mulims' holiest day of the year: Eid ul Adha, or Eid of Sacrifice. This holiday marks the end of the yearly Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca). Muslims are called upon to sacrifice their egos for service to "god" and to humanity. As you must know, I personally don't believe in any of this -- Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or anything -- but this person is a friend of mine, and he sent out a lengthy e-mail post about it. Islam, or any religion, is not important to me, but my friends are.
Ahmadi Muslims are not permitted to participate in this holiday, or the Hajj. Because my friend is Muslim, although he is American (and a lawyer), he offered an analogy, so non-Muslims would understand the problem. His analogy was as follows: "Let’s start with a quick thought exercise. Imagine if tomorrow the United States government passed a constitutional amendment declaring all Catholics as not Christian. Then imagine if the government added criminal provisions that any Catholic identifying or acting Christian would be fined, arrested, and given up to the death penalty. Additionally imagine that when a Catholic went to register to vote, they would be forced to choose between accepting that they were “non-Christian” or else sign a declaration denouncing the Pope and Catholicism. And finally, imagine if all books, websites, universities, even apps addressing Catholicism were banned, and Catholics using these tools to speak out about their persecution would face arrest or even death."
That is what the Pakistani government has done to Ahmadi Muslims starting in 1974. Ahmadi Muslims are no longer permitted to participate in the Hajj, and Ahmadi lawyers, for example, are not allowed to be admitted to the Bar in Pakistan. Some Ahmadi Muslims are victims of vigilante execution, as African Americans had and have been, and still are, in this country. My friend has written peer-reviewed law review articles about this problem.
In the post he sent out, he also said "Ahmadis in Pakistan are subjected to severe legal restrictions and other forms of officially-sanctioned discrimination. Ahmadis are prevented by law from engaging in the full practice of their faith and may face criminal charges for a range of religious practices, including the use of religious terminology. In 1974, the constitution was amended to declare members of the Ahmadi religious community to be “non-Muslims.” In 1984, basic acts of Ahmadi worship and interaction were made criminal offenses when sections B and C of Article 298 were added to the penal code. These amendments criminalized Ahmadis 'posing' as Muslims, calling their places of worship 'mosques,' worshipping in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms, performing the Muslim call to prayer, using the traditional Islamic greeting in public, or displaying the basic affirmations of the Muslim faith."
And "In April 2023, a 77-year-old lawyer from the Ahmadiyya Community was targeted within the premises of the Sindh High Court by some lawyers on account of his faith. He was accused of hurting the sentiments of Muslims by adding the religiously inclined word 'Syed' as a prefix to his name. However, critics argued that by using the prefix, which is only used by Muslims, the lawyer was trying to pose as a Muslim, and they did not accept that being of the Ahmadiyya faith, he was a Muslim.
"You read that right. The blasphemy allegation was that his name, Syed, hurt the feelings of orthodox Muslims and therefore he is a criminal. The most prominent and violent attack on Ahmadi Muslims to date occurred on May 28, 2010, when Taliban extremists attacked two Ahmadi mosques in broad daylight, during Friday Jummah Prayer, and killed 94 Ahmadis."
And "Dozens to hundreds of Ahmadi Muslims are murdered annually with impunity, with hundreds to thousands more in prison, with hundreds of thousands more denied the right to vote, run for office, practice their faith publicly, or even speak freely without the existential consequence of fine, arrest, or even the death penalty. And for those wondering how the authorities might discover that a person belongs to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community? Ahmadis have special ID cards that forcibly identify their faith, making the targeted persecution an inevitability. The discriminatory laws on the books that ban Ahmadi Muslims from identifying as Muslim, practicing our faith, or even voting, remain on the books."
And "Meanwhile, and by all accounts and testimonies, Ahmadi Muslims are model citizens with a 99% literacy rate, build secular schools and hospitals globally providing free education and healthcare to millions, and have contributed to Pakistan world renowned juggernauts like Pakistan’s first Nobel Prize winner in Dr. Abdus Salam. But the Government of Pakistan has wiped even his memory from Pakistan’s history books, as they have wiped the word “Muslim” off Salam’s tombstone."
And "In a recent report to the United Nations, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Lawyers Association USA testified to the horrifying escalation that the Government of Pakistan is now engaging in by prosecuting Ahmadi Muslims on terrorism charges for the ‘crime’ of possessing and selling an Ahmadi printed copy of the Qur’an:
State authorities are also arresting and prosecuting Ahmadi Muslims as 'terrorists' under the provisions of Pakistan’s primary anti-terrorism legislation, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, for possessing allegedly banned religious publications, arrested and sentenced to five years in prison on blasphemy and terrorism charges for selling copies of the Qur’an and other publications of the community.
How ironic that while claiming to stand as the vanguard of Islam, Pakistan criminalizes possession of the Qur’an itself in ways the West’s most ardent Islamophobes could only dream of. The result of this targeted persecution is that despite representing less than 1% of Pakistan’s population, 'Ahmadi Muslims account for almost 40% of all arrests under Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws. Over 4,000 Ahmadi Muslims have faced criminal charges for simply practicing their Islamic faith.'"
And perhaps most important for us: "Pakistan’s first Constitution reflected the ideals of religious freedom and minority rights to date denied to Ahmadi Muslims. For example, the Preamble to Pakistan’s Constitution declares that Pakistan shall be a state:
Wherein adequate provision should be made for the minorities freely to profess and practise [sic] their religions and develop their culture. . .Wherein should be guaranteed fundamental rights including equality of status and of opportunity, equality before law, and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship and association, and social, economic, and political justice…; Wherein adequate provision shall be made to safeguard the legitimate interests of minorities…;"
I told my friend something he probably had no other reason to know: Orthodox Jews similarly disqualify the Jewishness of Jews who are not Orthodox.
You don't care about Islam, per se, and I'm essentially virulently anti-religious. But I'm not anti-people. And as was true of Pakistan's first Constitution, the US Constitution likewise guarantees separation of church and state We here have a different version of the problem Pakistani Ahmadi Muslims have with other Pakistani Muslims. We have Christians who think at least the United States is somehow supposed to have been, and to be, a Christian country, and many of those Christians think all Americans should practice their brand of Christianity. Apparently, it's not hard to get careless, and forget that the majority doesn't get to make all the rules for the minority, whether they're a religious minority, Native Americans, or African Americans.
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