Imam Ansar Raza, a middle-aged man who works for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as a full-time missionary, entered the room and joined the conversation.
Source/Credit: Owen Sound Sun Times
By Scott Dunn | February 15, 2015
OWEN SOUND - Four Muslim men invited questions about their moderate interpretation of Islam Saturday at an open house in the Owen Sound public library auditorium.
In the wake of extremist beheadings and killing in the name of their religion in France and the Middle East and in lone-wolf attacks in Canada, a man who came to the open house declared ISIS is “going around killing people” and that isn't right.
Volunteers Quodoos Ataul and Naeem Sheikh, who stood behind a table with copies of the Qur'an and information pamphlets at the door, condemned ISIS, or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is the former name of the Islamic State, saying it misuses their holy book to justify killing.
Sheikh, born in Pakistan and resident of Canada for 17 years, said ISIS is a political organization which wants to take land and manipulates people to gain support.
Imam Ansar Raza, a middle-aged man who works for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as a full-time missionary, entered the room and joined the conversation.
“We do not condone what these Muslims are doing because, we condemn it. Strongly. It's not Islam what they're doing. You feel enraged? We feel more enraged than that because they are using the name of our religion,” he said.
The group's Owen Sound visit was part of an outreach campaign on behalf of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, one of dozens of branches of Islam. Owen Sound is one of 33 communities Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association members are visiting across Canada. This was a return trip to Owen Sound.
They drove from Maple, north of Toronto, and weren't aware that a new Muslim association had recently opened in the city, Raza said. Its representatives weren't part of the event and may not have known about it, he suggested.
In an interview, Raza said Ahmadiyya followers are obliged by their Prophet Ahmad's teaching to denounce misuse of the Holy Qur'an when used to justify killing. The Prophet Muhammad in the Qur'an taught killing must only be done defensively, if war is imposed on you.
“So when people attack you, if you don't kill them, they will kill you. So God said where ever you find them, kill them,” Raza said.
Some Ahmadiyya beliefs are outside those of some Muslims. They believe Jesus died. They also believe they're obliged to actively spread their interpretation of Islam.
Raza said their religion tolerates the caricatures of Mohammad with grenades in his turban such as led to the killing spree at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in France, though it demands people to be respectful too.
But Raza said he believes the same radical extremists who killed in objection to the cartoons reinforced the caricature of the prophet they denounced.
Ahmadiyya Muslims believe women's primary role is to raise children but they don't preclude women from having careers and to live independent lives, Raza said.
Raza said Islamic extremists were fortified by Western arms and political manipulations by the CIA, which helped create the mujahideen or jihadist guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan to oppose Soviet troops in the 1980s, for example.
Now the world is left with terrorist groups with political ambitions to rebuild the Ottoman Empire, while saying they're doing it in the name of Islam, Raza said.
But those Muslims who use the Prophet's words to justify killing reinforces the mistaken belief in the rest of the world that religion is to blame. It's up to Muslims to persuade certain fellow Muslims as well the rest of the world that the violent interpretation of Islam is wrong, he said.
“The good thing is, all those Muslims who are living in the West including Europe and North America, including United States and Canada, they are very peace-loving people. These Muslims agree to what we say. They say yes Islam is a religion of peace, we should not take arms.”
“But inside there are certain elements who are provoking the youth. And that's a very small percentage.”
Ahmadiyya Muslims raise this with other Muslim communities because they're better positioned to root out any radicalization if present in their own mosques, Raza said.
“We are educating our Muslim brothers who do not belong to our community to beware of them. To curb any kind of activity which they see. And they try to stop this radicalization at any minutest level that they may find,” he said. “A large number of them, they agree (with) us.”
Ahmadiyya Muslims number in the “tens of millions” worldwide, Raza said. There are 25,000 Ahmad followers among Canada's roughly one million Muslims, he said.
But the Ahmadiyya Muslims may not be best positioned to carry the fight where it's needed most. Some Muslims view Ahmadiyya Muslims as “stooges” of Western powers, which Raza said stems from history.
Ahmad, who founded the Ahmadiyya community in 1889 in India, declared the Holy War over and said “to take up arms in the name of religion, in the name of God, is strictly forbidden now.”
He called for people to be loyal to the British after an revolt to overthrow the British East India Company which governed India. That prompted some Muslims to view Ahmad, who was raised within British institutions established in India, as the creation of the British to encourage division among already divided people of Muslim faith, Raza said.
“He was declared as British stooge. And still we are called Zionist agents, agents of United States, of Israel, of Britain. Many people don't trust us, they say no, no, you are stooges of Western powers.”
Their religion was constitutionally outlawed in Pakistan in 1974 and its spiritual leader, selected by electoral college vote, lives in exile in the United Kingdom.
Read original post here: Canada: Ahmadi Muslim ambassadors invite dialogue
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