« Malaysia: Mahathir's Daughter Condemns Muslim Nation's Treatment Of Its Women |
| Pakistan: Islamists Killed in Waziristan »
March 10, 2006
Indonesia: Ahmadiyya Sect Told To Renounce Its Claims To Be Muslim
News from asianewsnet, quoting Malaysia's Straits Times, states that the Ahmadiyyah sect in Indonesia, which has 200,000 members, has been ordered by hardline Muslim groups to renounce its claims to be Muslim, if they do not wish to be harrassed and intimidated.
Attacks on the Ahmadiyya in Indonesia (where they are called the Jemaah Ahmadiyyah) have increased in recent months. We reported in September last year that in Sudkadana, West Java, a mob of 1,000 people had attacked an Ahmadiyyah community, damaging 70 houses and also six mosques.
The Ahmadiyya sect have requested that Indonesian religious authorities respect its right to call itself Muslim. It is regarded by Indonesian authorities as deviant. In July last year, the MUI - the Indonesian Ulemas Council issued a fatwa denouncing liberal interpretations of Islam, secularism and pluralism, and since then, attacks against the Ahmadiyyah or Ahmadi community increased.
According to today's article, Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni said that the Jemaah Ahmadiyah should declare itself as belonging to a new religion.
The Ahmadi have suffered discrimination from Muslims throughout the Muslim world. In Bangladesh violent attacks on the community are made by groups affiliated with the Islami Oikya Jote, one of the four parties in the coalition government.
In Pakistan, blasphemy laws introduced in 1986 forbid Ahmadiyyas from calling themselves Muslim or to propagate their faith, under the penal code articles 298-B and 298-C. Breaches of these rules carry a three year imprisonment.
In Saudi Arabia, they are regarded as heretics and are banned from visiting Mecca for the Hajj.
Founded in India in 1898 by Hadrhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the sect is opposed to violence, unlike many mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims. Because they revere Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet, the promised Messiah or Mahdi, other Muslims get enraged, as for them, only Mohammed is the "last prophet of Allah".
In Pakistan on October 7, eight members of an Ahmadiyya community were killed by gunmen as they performed morning prayers in their mosque, at Mong, a suburb of Mandi Bahauddin, 65 miles south of Islamabad.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 10, 2006 11:51 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)