This unruly situation within Pakistan allowed for gunmen to storm into Ahmadi-Muslim mosques on May 28, 2010, and kill more than 80 members while they were in the midst of their Friday prayers.
Source/Credit: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Ahmed Khan | June 10, 2014
Like everyone else on the planet, I have recently come to know of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo and its staff. I reacted with disgust and abhorrence and wonder why someone would commit this act and worse, in the name of that person's religion, Islam.
I fully condemn this act with all my being in the name of humanity.
But for me, the situation is even more tense because I am a Muslim-American, and in my faith when a person kills another, it is as if he or she killed all of mankind (Qur'an 5:33). The only tragic irony is that the Muslims who killed 12 innocent people at Charlie Hebdo did not see or feel this. They shouted, "Allah-o-Akbar" in the midst of their dastardly act while proclaiming that they were defending the honor of Prophet Muhammad.
I am here to tell you all that I, too, defend the Prophet but in the very way that these masked terrorists were trying to destroy. My pen is mightier than their guns. I am part of a broad network of writers called the Muslim Writers Guild of America, and our articles at www.muslimwriters.org span a vast array of areas where Islam is being defamed in the media and we are there to defend it with ideas and arguments.
We represent the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community worldwide; I even tweeted after the recent attacks that our response after Charlie Hebdo cartoons was remarkably different. The founder of the community we represent, Mirza Ghulam of Ahmad of Qadian, whom we believe to be the Messiah of the time, penned more than 80 books in the defense of Islam. And yet this single act of these three gunmen insulted the Prophet Muhammad more than Charile Hebdo or others could do against him.
In the Holy Qur'an, the Prophet Muhammad is given a divine title "Mercy for all Peoples" and his example befitted it (Qur'an 21:108). All documented evidence has foretold that his forgiveness was unparalleled. He forgave a man who caused fatal injuries to his daughter and her unborn child, a woman named Hinda who during a battle partook in mutilating his beloved uncle Humza, a Jewish man who defiled his mosque and left without telling so he had to clean himself, all of the people of Mecca who persecuted Muslims for more than 20 years and finally even those who personally mocked him.
When these gunmen and others like them take innocent lives, no matter who they are, because of mere mockery against the Prophet, then they should know that his example was different. Other faith-based people used to call names or mocked Prophet Muhammad or Allah — the name singly given to God — in his time, too. But Prophet Muhammad never encouraged violence or worldly punishment in response and stopped his followers from doing the same thing (Qur'an 6:109).
Unfortunately, the extremist mind does not care about this.
The extremists within Islam have taken the insulting of Prophet Muhammad to a whole new level where they have attached their own definition to it. The members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community worldwide follow all the tenets of Prophet Muhammad's guidance and read the Qur'an. Because of this, they have peacefully existed for 125 years without incident. However, the government of Pakistan has state-sanctioned them as non-Muslims and everything they do as insulting Prophet Muhammad.
This unruly situation within Pakistan allowed for gunmen to storm into Ahmadi-Muslim mosques on May 28, 2010, and kill more than 80 members while they were in the midst of their Friday prayers. And every year since then, more have been killed in various places in Pakistan.
I can go on and on, but the point is that the extremist mind twists everything in the favor of furthering its own personal agenda — and is not related to religion. The truth is that these gunmen were half-baked Muslims when it came to following their faith. They wanted to defend the very religion that they were not ready to follow themselves and insult it in the process.
At a time like this, we cannot give in to their hate so that it can divide us. The only way to defeat their extremist agenda and to honor the lives lost in this tragedy is for all of us to be united against them. Islam is not at fault here and Ahmadi-Muslims everywhere will be ready to defend it and the Prophet Muhammad, but with their pens alone.
Ahmed Khan of Oshkosh is a member of the Muslim Writers Guild of America.
Read original post here: Defend Prophet Muhammad with the pen - Ahmed Khan
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