Anti-Ahmadiyya rage in Indonesia: Disagreement over beliefs is not a fair reason to hate a faith, sect or sub-sect

The sight may have been impressive. Tens of thousands on streets of Jakarta protesting against the Ahmadiyyas. But the cause wasn't impressive, at all.

Sea of Muslim demonstrators protesting against a micro-minuscule minority in Indonesia. It is true that most of Muslims consider the Ahmadiyyas as heretic and outside the pale of Islam but is it fair to come out in such massive strength on the streets, against your own countrymen?

The reason--they have different beliefs, is not convincing. The rage is clearly manufactured by the section of clergy for its own interests. Haven't sects, sub-sects and heretic sects existed in Islamic world for centuries. 

Religious groups as diverse as Nusayri, Druze and Yazidi have been living together in Middle-East.
Or is it that Ahmadiyyas are the latest of the group, barely a century old, and hence there is more anger and discomfort about their presence.

Many fundamentalists among mainstream Islamic sects also keep accusing the other sect of heresy and there is no end to such internecine disputes. Despite their propaganda, the Ahmadiyyas don't seem to be growing and it's clear that the figures are also exaggerated.

In Pakistan, the community has been persecuted for long and they [including the Lahori group] have been declared non-Muslims. Anger against the sect has been witnessed in Bangladesh and Indonesia, countries that could have shown the way to other nations.

Unfortunately this sectarian ailment has spread up to Indonesia. The government is giving in to the demands and making life difficult for the sect. Rather than succumbing to the pressure of clerics, the society and government in these countries can do well to strengthen democratic values.

It is not only un-democratic and unjust to harass a sect or group of people but also un-Islamic. This should be condemned. I had written a post on Ahmadiyyas including and on Urdu poet Obaidullah Aleem, who was an Ahmedi.

In a column in Jakarta Post, Jennie S Bev reminds Muslims about the stress on compassion in Islam. And this form of bullying that because we are in greater number we will crush you, is outrageous. In Pakistan, there has been sustained campaign against the group, which is also termed as Qadiyani.

It is sad to see the energies of Muslims getting channelised in the wrong way. No wonder, a columnist had remarked that Muslim countries haven't achieved anything in magnitude compared to the achievements of a tiny country like Korea.

Meanwhile, a programme of the Ahmadiyya Jamat in Hyderabad Deccan [India] was cancelled by the administration on Sunday after Muslim groups including MIM and Majlis Bachao Tehreek held protests and threatened to take law in their hands if the programme was allowed to be held.

[Photo: Map of Indonesia]

Killings, bloodshed across Muslim world: Who are the killers, Who are getting killed?

maiN yah kiske naam likhuuN jo alam guzar rahe haiN
mere shahar jal rahe haiN, mere log mar rahe haiN

koi aur to nahiiN hai pas-e-Khanjar-aazmaaii
hamiiN qatl ho rahe haiN, hamiiN qatl kar rahe haiN

[Translation: To whom shall I name these deaths, the burning of my cities, who is behind the scene responsible for our cries]

These are couplets of renowned Urdu poet Obaidullah Aleem's ghazal, which I've posted in Urdu, Hindi and Roman scripts Here.

The second photograph below is from Qahtaniya village west of Mosul in Iraq inhabited by Yazidis*, where a series of suicide bombings killed 400 persons this week.

Country, region, religion, sect, followers of different spiritual leaders, they are all baying for each other's blood. Is it not Iraqi blood? Today blasts and murders are happening from Syria to Indonesia. This is really mindless violence.

It is in this context that I have quoted the couplets here. The family of Obaidullah Aleem, a poet born in India, had migrated to Pakistan long back. It was the sectarian clashes in Pakistan that may have prompted him to write these lines.

Ironically, Aleem belonged to the Ahmadiyya sect, that believes in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani as prophet, though their split branch, Lahoris, believe him as a mujaddid or reviver, but both sects were declared un-Islamic in Pakistan.

I admit that I earlier I was also biased against the sect. 

But the kind of persecution they have braved, is also unparalleled. 

Recently I heard another ghazal of Aleem in his own voice. 

And the melancholy, the intense sadness, in his voice really touched me.

It is saddening how this intolerance has made a mess of so many countries in the entire Muslim world.

It's a long ghazal [read it in any of the three scripts Here] and many of its couplets are not found in the ghazal that starts with the couplet:

kuchh ishq thaa kuchh majbuuri so maiN ne jeevan vaar diyaa
maiN kaisaa zindaa aadmii thaa, ek shaKhs ne mujhko maar diyaa

maiN rota huuN aur aasmaan se taare girte dekhtaa huuN
un logoN par jin logoN ne mere logoN ko aazaar diyaa
When he read the second couplet, the lack of applause form audience was palpable. Unlike other Muslim sects, the beliefs of Ahmadiyyas or Qadiyanis do disturb mainstream Muslims as they don't believe in the finality of prophetood, which is the cornerstone of traditional Islamic belief.

Also, the apparently aggressive campaigns of Ahmadiyyas towards spreading their belief and getting new 'converts', perturb us [though followers of any new movement or sect are generally more zealous]. 

More so, because Ahmadiyyas have come from within Muslims, which make us a little more uncomfortable compared to those belonging to other religions. Beliefs are a personal matter. We have our beliefs, they have theirs. 

Difference in beliefs doesn't give the right to any society to deny the right to a peaceful and dignified existence to any group. Any such society will head towards doom. Iraq, Kurds, Sunnis, Shias, Yazidis, Ahmadiyyas, Deobandis Barelvis... I am flying off tangent!

But what we are witnessing in Iraq is a catastrophe of colossal propotions. I must admit that I always felt that the Ahmadiyya persecution was more a propaganda than reality but recent interaction with some people especially an acquaintance's personal account of the way they are treated, was disgusting.

In a government office where he was transferred and joined after posting, some persons mistook him as a Ahmadiyya though he is a Sunni Muslim. I don't want to reproduce what he told me, at this blog.There is an outstanding post at ATP about the Pakistan's dilemma regarding their only Nobel laureate, Dr Abdus Salam. Click to read.

[*The micro-minuscule Yazidi sect, the followers of whom speak Kurdish, was targeted. This semi-pagan sect has mysterious beliefs and pay obeisance to Sheikh Adi, the supreme creator and Malek Taus. They also show an unusual reverence for Shaitan.]

Photo: The US military helicopter blasts dust as it lands at the site of bombing