Canada: Proselytizing efforts by Ahmadiyya Muslims make them unpopular with Sunnis and Shias

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In North America, Ahmadi have become known as assertive proselytizers, which is one reason they are unpopular among Sunni and Shia Muslims in Canada.

Drawing of Baitur Rahman Mosque, which opens in Delta next month.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |
Source/Credit: The Vancouver Sun
By Douglas Todd | April 26, 2013

A tiny minority of Canadian Muslims, Ahmadiyyas make their present felt — in politics, in the media and in efforts to seek converts

They are a small religious sect in Canada.

But I receive more emails and news releases from the Ahmadiyya Muslims than I do from the rest of Canada’s roughly one million Muslims combined.

The Ahmadiyya are not shy about seeking converts in Canada, mainly by connecting with politicians and offering hundreds of public talks and “interfaith” forums each year.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is among those keenly aware of the Ahmadiyya, also known as Ahmadi. He made his Feb. 19 announcement about the new $5- million Office of Religious Freedom from Ahmadiyya headquarters.

There are fewer than 25,000 Ahmadi in Canada. Many of them area refugees from Pakistan. Ahmadi Muslims represent about one per cent of all the world’s Muslims; most live in South Asia and Africa.

They formed in 1889 around Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, an Indian mystic who claimed to be the world’s messiah, “the second advent of Jesus.”

The Ahmadi hold many beliefs far outside mainstream Islam, including to the idea there is such a thing as a messiah. They’re also convinced Jesu s died in Kashmir, in the Himalayas.

In North America, Ahmadi have become known as assertive proselytizers, which is one reason they are unpopular among Sunni and Shia Muslims in Canada.

In Pakistan, tensions are much higher. The Ahmadi are not allowed to call themselves Muslims by that country’s Sunni-majority government. They are subject to harassment and even extremist violence, such as in 2010 when scores were killed in a Lahore explosion. Carleton University professor emeritus Antonio R. Gualtieri, author of Conscience and Coercion, is an expert on the Ahmadi’s international struggles.

Their persecution helps explain why the prime minister held his Office of Religious Freedom announcement at Canada’s main Ahmadiyya headquarters and mosque in Maple, Ont.

In Canada, they are prospering, especially in Toronto. Metro Vancouver’s roughly 1,500 Ahmadi, most of whom are Pakistani, are opening a large new main mosque on May 18 at 9750 River Rd. in Delta.

B.C. Ahmadi leaders frequently invite politicians to their events. Across the country, the Ahmadi have over the years held thousands of “interfaith dialogues,” typically at universities.

Through such well-publicized open forums on themes such as suffering, goodness or human rights, the Ahmadi often attract Canadian newcomers unfamiliar with the different schools of Islam.

I talked to a Canadian Ahmadi leader, Ataul Wahid, when he flew into Vancouver from Ontario recently to lead a public discussion at Simon Fraser University on “the Islamic approach to intoxicants.”

Wahid, who has gone door to door in Canada to spread the message of a Muslim messiah, readily acknowledged the Ahmadi often experience “hostile” relations with Muslims in Canada and elsewhere.

“We get some heat,” said Wahid, 57, who adopted his new name when he converted to the sect in 1984. Wahid’s mother was British and his father French.

Wahid says he’s frequently “abused” by other Muslims, whom he maintains do not match his commitment to peace.

In contrast to Wahid, Vancouver’s Umar Chaudhry tried to play down Ahmadi disputes with other Muslims.

Chaudhry, who moved to B.C. from Pakistan, acknowledged Ahmadi have not usually been invited to the city’s major pan-Muslim events. Beyond that, he said, “There have not been many issues.”

SFU Islamic specialist Derryl MacLean says the Ahmadi are part of an “organized, bureaucratic, hierarchical and authoritarian movement.”

In his chapter in Asian Religions in B.C. (UBC Press), MacLean says “much of their organization and ideology revolve around the proselytization of Muslims and non-Muslims. This involves quite modern, evangelical methods.”

Unlike most Muslims in Canada, MacLean writes: “The Ahmadis seek to monopolize the representation of the Muslim (community) in their own sectarian events,” at which he says Ahmadi speakers typically claim to personify the “Islamic” view.

Given such strained religious relationships, some Canadians have questioned why the prime minister would announce the Office of Religious Freedom in Ahmadiyya headquarters.

How provocative would it have been if Harper had made his announcement in the headquarters of a Western minority religion that claims persecution, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

While recognizing the Ahmadiyya have been mistreated in Pakistan, Canadian writer Haroon Siddiqui is among those who charge Harper with “exploiting old country fault lines among immigrant communities in the name of religious rights.”

However, Wahid and Chaudhry take such criticism in stride. They’re proud about trying to bring newcomers to their messianic form of Islam.

Asked if they often lure in converts by holding “dialogues” on Canadian campuses, they happily acknowledge they’ve had quite a bit of success.

Dtodd@vancouversun.com - Blog: www.vancouversun.com/the search

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun



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