His parents, Anwer and Amtul Kahn, have resided in Chino Hills since 1987 raising five children. Two of their children continue to live in Chino Hills and are raising their own children here.
Source/Credit: Champion Newspapers
By Marianne Napoles | March 4, 2017
Amjad Khan was a little boy when he laid one of the first bricks in the foundation of the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino 30 years ago.
Today, the 37-year-old raised in Chino Hills relishes his volunteer role as the national director of public affairs for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
Mr. Khan led a delegation of 121 Muslim men and women from 30 states on Feb. 17 to meet with representatives in more than 200 Congressional offices in the House and Senate.
“We have done this for seven years,” said Mr. Khan. “We call it a Day on the Hill and our aim is to let our representatives know that as American Muslims we love our country, we are civically engaged, and we are trying to dispel myths on Islam.”
The delegation is also promoting a grass roots campaign called “True Islam” to fight extremist ideologies like ISIS, he said. The campaign promotes the principles that define true Islam rather than the perverse Islam peddled by extremists, Mr. Khan said.
Mr. Khan attended Eagle Canyon Elementary, Canyon Hills Junior High, Ayala High, Claremont McKenna College and Harvard Law School. He is an adjunct professor at UCLA Law School and a partner with Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan LLP. In Los Angeles.
The West Covina resident attends the Chino mosque, 11941 Ramona Ave., with his wife Saddia and two children, Tamseela, 2, and Saqib, 5.
His parents, Anwer and Amtul Kahn, have resided in Chino Hills since 1987 raising five children. Two of their children continue to live in Chino Hills and are raising their own children here.
Mr. Khan said the True Islam campaign was launched, shortly after the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December 2015.
He said five members of the mosque traveled with him to Washington, D.C.
They are his wife, Saddia, and their two children; Dr. Tahir Khan of Pomona Valley Veterinary Hospital, Rashid Syed, a retired civil engineer, and Fateh Qureishi, an engineer in Corona.
Minority Muslims
The Ahmadi Muslims are not viewed as Muslims by the majority of the Muslim world.
In fact, their teachings are considered to be blasphemous by a large body of Muslims.
While the Muslim world awaits the messiah and reformer predicted by the Prophet Muhammad, the Ahmadi Muslims believe he already arrived in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who was born in India in 1835.
The Ahmadiyya community was established in 1889 in India.
The word means revival in Arabic.
Messiah Ahmadwas sent by God to revive Islam’s true teachings and fight against extreme views that crept into the faith, Mr. Khan said.
The Messiah Ahmad denounced violent jihad and declared that the sword has no place in Islam.
Mr. Khan said the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the only Islamic organization that publicly endorses the separation of mosque and state.
The Ahmadis are persecuted in Pakistan.
They were declared by the government as non-Muslims in 1974 and prohibited from any public expression of their faith in 1984.
On May 28, 2010, two mosques in Pakistan were stormed by the Pakistani Taliban who massacred 86 Ahmadi Muslims while they were praying.
More than 370 Ahmadi Muslims have been killed in Pakistan since 1974 and 144 of those were killed since 2010.
Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan are not allowed to vote unless they declare they are non-Muslim or sign a statement denouncing Messiah Ahmad as a false prophet.
Mr. Khan said the Ahmadi Muslims have been interacting with Congress and the presidents, beginning with Hoover, since its founding in the United States in 1920.
He said the Ahmadiyya Muslim Bi-Partisan Congressional Caucus was formed in 2014 to highlight religious and human rights abuses suffered by the Ahmadi community and other religious minorities across the world.
Long line
Mr. Khan comes from a long line of Ahmadi Muslims.
His father, Anwer Khan, was a founding member of the Baitul Hameed Mosque and attended zoning hearings at Townsend Junior High. Anwer Khan’s dad was an Imam and director of outreach for the Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan.
Anwer’s grandfather was a close companion of Messiah Ahmad and laid the foundation stone for the first mosque in London, England in 1926.
“We are Ahmadiyya Muslims because of my grandfather,” said Anwer Khan. “He accepted Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as the messiah.”
Mohammed Zafarullah, Imam for the Baitul Hameed Mosque, said the mosque has been a home away from home for Amjad Khan.
“He attended Sunday school as a child, and now brings his children to the same school and participates as a teacher,” he said. “He interfaces with public officials and travels around the country to represent the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.”
More than 13,000 individuals have publicly endorsed the True Islam campaign.
They include federal and state lawmakers such as Rep. Norma Torres and Rep. Pete Aguilar, interfaith leaders, and police chiefs including Karen Comstock of Chino, Mr. Khan said.
Read original post here: USA: Chino Hills native challenges extremism
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