The campaign against the Muslim sect Ahmadiyah continues. As we’ve mentioned here mainstream Muslim fanatics have difficulty accepting that the Ahmadiyah group, which does not believe that Muhammad was the last prophet, has the right to call themselves Muslim.

Almuzamil Yusuf, a senior parliamentary member, said that the issue is not just about the rights of the Ahmadiyah people to call themselves whatever they like but also the rights of the majority Muslims to protect the purity of Islam. If its purity was not guarded then ordinary Muslims would become confused and led astray, he said.

He said that the matter of Ahmadiyah could be viewed from three angles, the theological, the question of whether they constitute a distinct religion, and the legal side.

From the point of view of theology, or aqidah, the sect was clearly at odds with mainstream Islam, and this was the case throughout the Muslim world. To overcome the problem of their heresy would take a concerted agitprop campaign, or dakwah, by Islamic leaders.

A rational and open dialogue should take place with the followers of Ahmadiyah to make them aware [of their errors]. (Dialog rasional terbuka dengan kelompok Ahmadiyah bisa menyadarkan mereka yang ikut-ikutan.)

On the question of their existence Almuzamil Yusuf said that Islam had clear boundaries and that Ahmadiyah had overstepped these.

If everyone who claims to be Islamic is also considered Islamic it will lead to the total disarray of the religion. (Jika, semua yang mengklaim Islam disebut Islam, ya Islam bisa centang perenang.)

Anything he had to say on the legal aspects was not reported.

He added that recent acts of mob violence against the sect members, as in Lombok, could not be justified.

In a practical way, and from the perspective of a very religious man, he is actually right. Christian leaders in the past had similar attitudes, heresy had to be nipped in the bud and fast before it seeped into the general population and caused division among the people - the Spanish Inquistion is a good example of this - although in all the conflicts between religious sects in Europe I have never heard of a case that one group refused to consider the other a part of Christianity.

Obviously the Christian world has moved on from those times, but at the same time it has lost its faith and is drifting towards self-induced death. Is the price of geniune religious belief intolerance of dissent, or can the belief be maintained while allowing others to carry on as they wish, and call themselves whatever they choose?

Tags: Religion