Pressat

Spread a culture of peace and tolerance

Tuesday 8 May, 2018

For
the last two hundred years, a debate has
ranged in the Muslim world about how Muslims living under non-Muslim
governments should live and behave. The Holy Quran is clear on this. It states:
“O you who believe, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in
authority from among you …” (4:59) Rather than
take this simple statement at face value, convoluted arguments were used
to show that it means that Muslims are to obey only Muslim governments, although
actual history negated such arguments. During the lifetime of the Holy
Prophet Muhammad, Muslims lived in peace under the Christian ruler, the Negus,
obeying his government and its rules. The Holy Prophet referred to the Negus as
‘our brother’.

120
years ago, His Holiness Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was divinely raised to correct
the Muslim misunderstanding of the Holy Quran, declared that so long as Muslims
have the freedom to practice and preach their religion, they should live in
peace under a non-Muslim government. He further declared that when dealing with
people a Muslim should never consider a petitioner’s religion or sect, telling
a newly qualified doctor: “only think: Allah has put the gift of healing in my
hand by which I can benefit humanity”.

It has taken our brothers and sisters a long time to
accept this. Gulf News, on
7th May 2018, underneath the headline “Good Muslims must strive to
be good citizens, scholars say”, reported on a two-day international conference on Muslim minorities held in Abu
Dhabi. Dr Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, chairman of the Supreme Committee of the conference is quoted as saying: “The
conference aims at spreading the culture of peace and tolerance between
adherents of religions and cultures and contributing to safeguarding the
children of Muslim minorities against violence and extremism and defending the
rights of these religious and cultural minorities according to international
conventions and treaties”.

The article quotes another
contributor, Abaas Yunas, head of the think tank Futures Initiative, who said: “The
same issues which face Muslim minorities face other minorities —
discrimination, the rise of nationalism and xenophobia, identity politics and
so on. What is important in such a time is the need to work towards alliances
of common good that are not restricted to people of the same religion or
ethnicity. Many Muslims are proud citizens of their towns and cities and just
like others, they want to see good for them”.

“Professor
Akbar Ahmad”, continues the article, “author, poet and playwright, who
currently serves as the Ibn Khaldoun Chair of Islamic Studies at American
University in Washington, DC, said the holy Quran very emphatically speaks of
all humanity as being a part of the same divine order”, and it quotes these
words from Prof. Ahmad: “Muslims in the minority must learn to live comfortably
both as citizens of their country and as Muslims. Indian Muslims should feel
both Indian and Muslim; British Muslims should feel both British and Muslim. It
is this sense of compatibility that must evolve in order for majority and
minority communities to live together in peace”.

This
organisation has been making just these points for over a century, struggling
against the erroneous understanding of
the Holy Quran on the part of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. There is no disputing
that Muslims are a target of hatred and
discrimination, but we need to accept that the
outdated views of our brothers have contributed to rise of Islamophobia. We praise Western
governments for upholding the rule of law, providing us with protection and
prosecuting those indulge in hate speech.

We,
yet again, invite our brothers to reflect upon the time they have lost by
rejecting the correct interpretation of the disputed verses of the Holy Quran
put forward by His Holiness Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah of Islam.
The time which could have been better spent
in moving forward to provide humanity with the solutions to its problems. It is
still not too late, let us join hands and move forward.

The Ahmadiyya
Association for the Propagation of Islam (Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam) was
established in Lahore in 1914 to promote the informed understanding of Islam in
the West. In the UK it operated the Shah Jehan Mosque in Woking until the early 1960s. Its new headquarters is at Dar-us-Salaam,
15 Stanley Avenue, Wembley, HA0 4JQ, UK. In 1924, in Berlin, it built the
first mosque in Continental Europe of the modern era. The German Government
recognises the Berlin Mosque as part of the German national
heritage. From its European and other centres around the world this
organisation has taught that Islam promotes peace, harmony and mutual respect
between all communities and nationalities.



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