Another abhorrent incident of murder in London. Another murderer found to be Muslim. Strange events surrounding the whole situation and the general public is left to draw conclusions. Should the probation system reconsider its practices or should the election campaigners use the situation to tag another appendix to their manifestos is not our concern here. What is of our concern is how to circumnavigate the name of Islam out of the storm that it has been plunged into.
A solution to this was given a hundred years ago. It remains as valid today as it ever was, thanks to the stagnant states of mind that refuse to change.
The Promised Messiah, peace be upon him, presented the solution to protecting the name of Islam that is associated to violence by guiding both the Western powers and the Muslim global community. While asking the Muslims to refrain from violence in the name of Islam, he urged Western powers not to toy with the sensitivities of Muslims. Yet the tenet of Jihad remained to be a favourite playground for both – it still is.
Now, almost a century later, the successor of the Promised Messiahas has analysed the situation in the modern context and prescribed remedies accordingly – the basic advice remains the same for both. The leitmotif of the modern situation may have remained the same, but the problem has taken a much more complex form and the possible solutions, subsequently, have become far more complicated.
The Western media machinery – powered by the powers – has continued to play with the Muslim emotion by branding their religion as nothing but a game of blood and sword. The Muslim world generally has reacted in exactly the way that was desired by such propaganda. What the Western powers did not realise was that the reaction of the Muslims would not necessarily remain in the Muslim world. It was destined to spill over the brim of what is known as the Muslim world and fl ow eventually to the West. This is what has happened. This spill-over of what the West calls “Islamist terrorism” has brought with it a band of multidimensional crises.
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih V, may Allah strengthen his hand, has addressed each and every crisis and advised world leaders – Muslim and Western both – on how to tackle them.
What troubles the youth that they turn into reactionaries, who see not other ways but to use weapons and kill innocent people? Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa has gone into the psyche of such troubled youth and, alongside many other problems, has seen frustration to be lying at the root of it. He is of the opinion that when the youth do not find the right channel to exert their energies, they will, inevitably turn to destructive tactics.
Immigration of people from war-torn areas in the East to the countries in the West has brought with it both good and bad consequences. Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa has advised Western countries that while it is not at all a good idea to shun all immigrants as terrorists, it is also imperative that any person being offered refuge should be thoroughly vetted and screened before they are allowed in. The bias and prejudices attached to freedom of expression are bringing more trouble and less peace.
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa has said – exactly in line with what the Promised Messiahas taught the world – to not hurt anyone’s religious sentiment in the name of freedom and the trajectory of religion-related violence will certainly drop to a level where things can be kept under control.
Is Islam a religion of terror? Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa has categorically made it clear on many occasions that it most certainly is not. Anyone associating themselves to Islam and then committing acts of violence is either unaware of Islam or is deliberately trying to tarnish it. In either case, Islam is not to be blamed.
How does the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat see such terror attacks where a so-called Muslim kills an innocent person? Well, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmadaa, the Worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, on behalf of himself and his Jamaat, clearly and fervently condemns any such attack that leads to any kind of disturbance in the peace of society, let alone killing an innocent citizen.
After the recent London Bridge attack and other such heinous incidents, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih V’saa message is always very clear: Killing of an individual means killing the whole of humanity.
To know more about his response on such acts, read his statements on www.pressahmadiyya.com