From: khalid@bu-bio.bu.edu (Rasheed A. Khalid)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re:  AHMADIYYA
Date: 9 Nov 92 21:28:24 GMT
Organization: Biology Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

In article <1992Nov8.202228.1031@altair.selu.edu> pmf$1349@altair.selu.edu writes:
>I do not mean to flame, but if Ahmadis are Muslims and Islam calls for unity
>and discussion of matters and shura, why would Ahmadis want to be separate than
>the rest of the Muslims.  Unless they do not want people to disagree with them
>or they think they are different in such cases they need to have their own news
>group without branching out of islam.  A Muslim should discuss his/her Islamic
>issues under Islam and NOT under a subgroup of Islam!
>
>Rami Hijazi

But Mr. Hijazi, the issue is more complicated than the way you
present it here.  It is not Ahmadis who are trying to isolate
themselves from the general body of Islam, but the Muslims in
general.  You might have read in my earlier postings in which
I called upon the moderators of soc.culture.islam to publicly
declare that they accept Ahmadis as Muslims.  Not a single one
of them did so.  They do not have problems accepting the other
72 sects under the main heading of Islam.  Moreover, there is
not a single Ahmadi representative among the moderators of the
newsgroup soc.religion.islam.  How could one, under the above
mentioned circumstances, accept fairplay from a group that has
a clear bias against the Ahmadiyya minority.

	If, however, you have problems accepting the logic that
I have presented here, just take a look at the Constitution of
the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in which, Ahmadis have been
singled out by the government of that country (where the Ahmadi
International Headquarter is located) as a non-Muslim group. No
other group is anathematized in this way by name in this noble
document.  And matters have been made still worse by the next
regime that followed, by including article 298 section C in the
Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) in 1984 also known as Presidential
Ordinance XX of 1984.  According to this rather unbelievable
new law, Ahmadis are prohibited from saying the Muslim call
for prayer; using the commonly used phrases of honor for their
own holy personages as those used for Muslim ones; verbally or
in writing, refering to their place of worship as Masjid (which
means mosque); directly or indirectly posing as Muslims; to name
only a few of such offences.  These offences, it is mentioned
in the law, outrage the religious feelings of Muslims and as
such, any Ahmadi who commits any of them will be liable to
imprisonment for up to three years and fined.  Many Ahmadis
have been imprisoned for saying "Assalamo Alaikum", meaning
"peace be on you", since it is a Muslim way of salutation.
It is interesting to note here that if a Christian or Hindu
or person from any other religious creed does any of these
actions, there is no punishment mentioned for that person.
Anyone interested in the full text of the ordinance or the
article 20 of the Constitution may request it from me by
e-mail.  Isn't it interesting that in this day and age when
man is learning how to repair satellites in space, there are
these people engaged in futile, cheap leg-pulling which is
going to lead them nowhere.

	The relevance of the above to the newsgroup is that
most moderators of soc.religion.islam are from this same
country, Pakistan.

SO MY VOTE IS A RESOUNDING *YES* FOR THE PROPOSED NEWSGROUP

	SOC.RELIGION.ISLAM.AHMADIYYA

because I think we should act fairly and not in obedience to
a country gone awry.

My regards to readers,
Rasheed,
Boston, U.S.A.
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.poems