The law thus passed would criminalize an Ahmadi Muslim for simply saying the Islamic greeting, “Assalamu Alaikum” or by reciting from the Qur’an the Muslim Holy Scripture.
Source/Credit: Germantown Islam Examiner
By Shahina Bashir | September 8, 2014
Forty years ago in the month of September the government of a country played God and snatched away the rights of a group of citizens with the stroke of a pen. The country is Pakistan and the group is the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. On September 7, 1974, the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, submitted to the pressure of the orthodox clergy and put into effect the constitutional amendment which declared the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as ‘non-Muslims’. The decision made by Bhutto was broadcast on Pakistan radio. The announcement came as an utter shock for the Ahmadi Muslims who lived in Pakistan. They asked questions such as, “How could a parliament decide about our faith?” Until the morning of the declaration the Ahmadis were considered as Muslims and treated as equal citizens of the country. While Christians or Hindus considered themselves not belonging to the Islamic faith, the Ahmadi Muslims were thrown out of the pale of Islam through legislation and not out of their own profession.
Now fast forward to the year 1984. Pakistan is under the rule of the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq. In order to garner the support of the religious extremists and following in the footsteps of Bhutto, he promulgated the famous anti-Ahmadiyya Ordinance XX. This ordinance directly infringed upon the religious rights of a minority sect. Now the Ahmadi Muslims were forbidden to profess their faith either verbally or in writing. The law thus passed would criminalize an Ahmadi Muslim for simply saying the Islamic greeting, “Assalamu Alaikum” or by reciting from the Qur’an the Muslim Holy Scripture. According to this new decree the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community could be jailed for three years or fined an arbitrary sum of money for the simple profession of their faith. They were now explicitly forbidden to call their houses of worship “mosques” or give the call to Prayer, the “adhan”. What this ordinance in reality did was brand every single Ahmadi a criminal for simply “posing as Muslims”.
The decision of the Pakistani government to declare the Ahmadi Muslims out of the pale of Islam was backed by the Islamic Fiqh Council. In 1978, during their first session, they passed a resolution (Third Resolution) in which the council decided that “the Qadiani (Ahmadiyya) creed is totally out of Islam and its followers are infidels. Their pretension of being Muslims is merely for a deception and misguidance.” They also said, “The Islamic Fiqh Council makes it clear that Muslims as government officials, scholars, Da’wah (preachers) workers, intellectuals and writers must confront this misguided sect and its followers in each and every part of the world.” As a result of this collective stance the Ahmadi Muslims, who hold Pakistani passports, cannot travel to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj, the annual pilgrimage. Pakistan is probably the only country which requires the applicants to profess their faith on the passport application. According to item number 16 on the form, which is to be filled out by those who consider themselves Muslims, the applicant must openly reject the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and furthermore has to declare that he/she considers the Ahmadis as non-Muslims. The Ahmadi Muslims are left with choices which in either way will put them in a predicament. If they do not complete item 16, then they are indirectly admitting that they are non-Muslims and if they choose to fill it out the section then they will be going against their own belief.
Persecution against the Ahmadi Muslims was in place even prior to the promulgation of the laws of 1974 and 1984. However, the anti-Ahmadiyya groups of which the most prominent, “Tahafuz-e-Khatme Nabuwat” (Protection of the Finality of Prophethood), have been actively promoting hatred toward the Ahmadi Muslims. Billboards and posters have appeared in crowded marketplaces which call for the killing of Ahmadi Muslims. Not only do the anti-Ahmadiyya groups take to the streets and clearly proclaim that killing Ahmadi Muslims is a virtue, so-called learned journalists have also been the cause of the incitement of this hatred. A few years ago a talk show host, Aamir Liaqat Hussain of GEO TV, had a guest, a religious scholar, who boldly made the claim that Ahmadi Muslims are “Wajibul Qatl” or worthy of being killed. Within forty eight hours of the airing of the show, two Ahmadi Muslims were murdered in cold blood.
Since the promulgation of the blasphemy laws, hundreds of thousands of Ahmadi Muslims have emigrated from Pakistan and have sought asylum in countries in Europe and North America. However, there are still many more who remain in their homeland living in fear and uncertainty. In obedience to their Khalifa, His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad, they remain patient during these adverse times and fight with the weapon of choice- heartfelt prayers.
www.persecutionofahmadis.org
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Read original post here: Pakistan: Ahmadi Muslims still await the annulment of the 2nd amendment
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