Islamic Groups Call For Jihad At Meeting Near Washington D.C.

The only thing surprising about this news story is that Newsweek is actually reporting on it.

It is, of course, not surprising that Newsweek only runs quotes from a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya community to speak and explain about Islam, even though the Ahmadis are not considered Muslims by large swaths of the Muslim world.

Qasim Rashid’s tiny sect, the Ahmadi community, is considered heretical and blasphemous by both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. Most devout Muslims have denounced Ahmadis as kaffirs or heretics, and mainstream Islam generally considers them to be non-Muslims. This is because the Ahmadiyya Community believes that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is the Promised Messiah and that Muhammad was not the final prophet. Heresy! Ahmadis are persecuted, oppressed — even slaughtered.

The Ahmadis suffer persecution, oppression and slaughter at the hands of Muslims in so many Muslim countries because they attempted to reform/reinterpret jihad and Islam (claiming it to be “peaceful”). That’s bad enough. But the Ahmadis excoriate counter-jihadists such as me for my defense of their rights (here).

The fact is that these devout Muslims are calling for holy war on a sect that is, according to Islamic texts and teachings, heretical. Jihad dictates holy war against all who are not true Muslims.

Radical Islamic Groups Call For Jihad At Meeting Near Washington D.C.

By Cristina Maza, Newsweek, 11/22/17:

Groups of Sunni Muslim extremists gathered in a Holiday Inn in northern Virginia over the weekend and called for followers to wage jihad, or holy war, against infidels.

The radical extremists didn’t call for violence against Jews or Christians, but instead used the so-called Final Prophet Conference to rage against another group of Muslims that, like most American-Muslims, doesn’t support violent jihad.

The Pakistani-American imams who led the event bashed the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a religious movement founded in 19th-century India, according to one participant who attended the event. Among the main complaints was that Ahmadi Muslims criticize violence and forbid waging jihad against non-Muslim governments.

No worries, I am sure Harris Zafar, leader in the American Ahmadi community, will defend them and attack me (or my colleagues) instead.

“Because Islam is being attacked from all corners, we as Muslims should work together. But glory be to Allah, we have decided not to support anything [Ahmadi Muslims] say,” Mufti Shaza Hussain, an Imam in Virginia who addressed the participants, was quoted saying.

The conference organizers were Idara Dawat-O-Irshad and Khatme Nabuwwat Center, two Muslim groups registered as corporations in Virginia, just a short drive from the U.S. capital. The groups are working to export their extremist ideology and intolerance into the United States, critics say.

“Free speech doesn’t mean the freedom to promote violence. I see these people as worse than the Nazis marching in Charlottesville,” Qasim Rashid, a spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in the U.S., told Newsweek.

“Every group has extremists, whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, or Buddhists. I would like to see an environment where these radical ideologies are rooted out,” Rashid added, noting that it is “very concerning” that radical groups gathered in Virginia.

Rashid is lying ….. again. These devout Muslms are following Islam, to the letter. According to Islamic texts and teachings, it is Rashid who is the apostate because the Ahmadis believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is the Promised Messiah. 

Ahmadiyya Muslims say that groups like the ones in Virginia give Muslims a bad name at a time when the Trump administration is already demonizing many Muslims and painting them as extremists.

“These groups are influential in places like Pakistan, but I’d bet 99.9 percent of American Muslims reject these guys,” Rashid said.

Ahmadi Muslims believe that the Messiah has already arrived in the form of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a reformer who lived in India in the 1800s. Ahmad aimed to reform Muslims whose concept of jihad had become too violent. In response, extremist clerics in countries like Pakistan have banned the Ahmadi Muslims, and members of the group can be fined or even face capital punishment in Pakistan.

Ahmadi Muslims say it is their message of peace that offends the hardline extremists most.

“In this battle of ideas, it is important for those standing up for peace and dialogue not to be silenced by fanatical groups,” Harris Zafar, author of Demystifying Islam and a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, told Newsweek.

“It is important for our fellow Americans to understand that the extremists are not fighting Christians. They are fighting all humanity — including Muslims who disagree with their fanaticism.”

Representatives of Idara Dawat-O-Irshad and the Khatme Nabuwwat Center did not respond to requests for comment.