Pakistan: Under shadows of guns - Eid in Rabwah

Yesterday it was our mosques that were bombed and 87 martyred. Today its your mosques. Dont we want this bloodshed to end? Surely those who do this in the name of Islam are not muslims and know nothing about Islam. I am not asking you to think of me as right. I am just asking you to respect my right to choose for my self.

Aqsa Mosque entrance 

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: CybeGeek | Blog
By Naeem Ahmad Sabir | September 1, 2011
(Slightly edited for flow )

This Eid day when I woke up to get ready I was in a somber mood. I knew I wasn't going to the Aqsa mosque (the central mosque in Rabwah) where there would be thousands of people and the sweet smell of perfume - making the cool morning air even fresher.

No. Not any more. Those days are gone now when we used to go freely to our mosques (now legally called only as 'places of worship') without the shadows of guns. This Eid I was going to have to go to a smaller mosque a few houses away from my home. These are make-shift arrangements due to constant terrorist threats to the Ahmadis and the main mosque.

And why have I been denied this joy? Only because of my faith; only because I choose to believe what I feel is right for me and which is a matter between me and my God; and only because I choose to call this country my home where I have been forced to be counted as a minority, even though my forefathers gave their blood to make this country a reality.


The last Eid we had offered in the Aqsa Mosque was a few years ago. Seems like a distant memory now. I remember hurrying up to get good parking for my car, getting the children ready and then waiting - what seemed like for ages - for the wife to get ready, and yet it was all a pleasure.

There would be a river of women and children which would continue even after the prayer halls have been filled and the Eid sermon (khutba) has started. The happy faces of children all eager to get home again and start collecting their gifts, affectionately called eidies.

When we would finish our Eid prayers a sea of people would get up and roar towards each other and greet one another. Love is all one could see.

Only prayers and happiness is what I remember. No fears and no ill feelings. The Ahmadiyya community I grew up in is the most peaceful community in the world which is reflected by the motto we are taought to live by - "love for all hatred for none."

I just don't understand why this ever increasing animosity and persecution we face everyday.

Those who have taken away this pleasure in the name of Allah have, perhaps, never experienced the love of Allah the Almighty. Still we pray for the misguided that may Allah save them and save our country.

Yesterday it was our mosques that were bombed and 87 were martyred. Today its your mosques. Don't we want this bloodshed to end? Surely those who do this in the name of Islam understand nothing about Islam. I am not asking you to think of me as the one in the right. I am just asking you to respect my right to choose for myself what I think is right.

All I ask is - think. Think without prejudice.

When 87 of our were butchered in the middle of Friday prayers did anyone hear even one call for or an incident of revenge anywhere. Don't we Ahmadis know how to hold a guns and shoot? Why don't we? Does anyone ever ponders why?

It is because we are guided by the institution of Khilfat, a devine leadership which the rest of the Muslim Ummah longs for. So even if all of these small pleasures were taken away from us what they could not take away was our belief - and thus they have failed in their objectives.

These dark times will surely pass and then a new dawn will emerge. A dawn of truth and justice.


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