From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
Subject: Re: MULLAHS BURN QURAN AND DESCERATE MOSQUE IN DACCA
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 11:08:00 GMT

gagrawal@cs.tamu.edu (Gopal Agrawal) writes:
: In article <samaddar.721544120@dumbo> samaddar@siemens.com writes:
: >gt7242a@prism.gatech.EDU (KHAN,RAHEEL) writes:
: >
: >>     Yes, you have a right to believe in what you want.  And the same Ayah 
: >>     also says that "the right direction is henceforth distinct from the
: >>     wrong direction"!  So believe in what you will but give us a right to 
: >>     safeguard our religion from youf evil.  
: >
: >If you think that Ahmadis are preaching falsehoods, go ahead and preach
: >corrections to those falsehoods. But you don't have any right to commit
: >violence on them.
: >
: >Sumitro
: 
: I wonder if this problem can be viewed in another way. Consider the 
: case in India. As long as the Indian muslims stuck to their religion,
: there weren't any problems. But as soon as the muslims started to 
: demand seperate states within India, the strife began. The problem
: is not the tenets of the religion itself but the fact that muslims 
: consider themselves as a seperate nation within a nation. Deep down
: in our subconciousness, we would all rather first preserve our land
: and social unity than the abstract concepts of religion.
: 
: Same might be the case with Ahmadis. It has time and again been 
: stressed by muslims that Islam encompasses both religion and 
: state affairs. Hence a seperate form of Islam (even the slightest 
: variation from the Islam followed by the majority) would be 
: perceived as an attempt to set up a seperate nation within a 
: nation by this so called "renegade" Islam.  (wasn't there an 
: attempt by the mullahs (in Pakistan or Iran) to declare the 
: shia's (or was it sunnis) as non-muslims or to atleast take away
: their voting rights ?). As long as muslims believe in the 
: oneness of state and religion, I doubt if they will ever 
: be able to tolerate any different form of Islam (tolerating 
: other religions is totally out of question ofcourse 
: -- unless they form a minority of inconsequential proportion). 
: 
: regards,
: --   
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: _____/ _____/ __/   __/ __/ ______/ | \___|  
: E-mail - gagrawal@cs.tamu.edu       |   /   All Std. Disclaimers apply.

I have to disagree with Gopal here. I think that the issue of Muslims in
India identifying as a separate nation in India and the Ahmadi issue in
Islam are not related. 

The mistaken assumption in your last paragraph is that Islam cannot
tolerate any other opinion as a part of its tenents. This may be true
in the context of modern Muslim countries/peoples whose personal 
intollerence is reflected in their version of Islam, but it is certainly
not a tenant of Islam per se. There have been many sects ion Islam 
throughout the ages. There have been some tensions from time to time
but on the whole there has been a high level of tollerence between
different sects and of different religions.

(Yes, during Zia's rule, there was an attempt by mullahs inj Pakistan to
have Shia declared non-Muslims also. They will stop at nothing to exclude
everyone one diagrees with them from Islam. On Pakistani Passporst, who are
asked to declare whether you are Muslim,Ahmadi, Shia or any other religion!)

Nadeem Malik,
nadeem@p.igp.ethz.ch

: 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan