The Purity of Islam

Mar 1st, 2006, in News, by

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?


2 Comments on “The Purity of Islam”

  1. Robert Charleson says:

    Back in the 17th century Calvinists did not regard Roman Catholics as Christians. but as pagans. Some Calvinists still think that way. You have some in America.

  2. EdJ says:

    Christian leaders in the past make the same mistakes as Islamic leaders today. But good is they LEARN from it and that makes the Christian faith recovering very fast and in a strong framework. Is is growing rapidly. I hope and pray our Islamic leaders (all over the world) will wake up a little faster and do not take the same about 200 years to realize wow we are on the wrong way in our strategy now!

    Do NOT think this way: “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”, because in TODAY’S world the Christian faith is the fast grown religion on earth. And maybe we have to take a good look at it to find out what we do wrong or…. what we can learn from it. In all do respect to and from each others.

    Religions, no matter witch one or coming from anywhere in the world, need each other to survive, like we only will understand the power of light when we are in the dark. We only understand the great taste of honey after we taste bitter(ness).

    I think it is very dangerous for Islamic people in general and all over the world to think we know and we do everything much better than all the other religions in the world. Because if we think like that, we think so wrong. The world is on fire and sad to say most conflicts in the world are caused by moslims killing moslims. For example the USA, only need to lean back and see this all happen as we loose control and murder our own brothers and sisters by millions and they take more and more power in the world, pretending they (usa) are the only power in the world who can save us, protect us and feed us. Well they are wrong but to stupid to understand.

    Maybe we can be very happy that the USA never understood Asian and African world and as we know from history Americans don’t know how to solve problems but with guns, money, killing and that if possible with drones. Americans think they do a good job but never they understand more and more people all over the world hates the USA. But all that has nothing to do with religion but only with incompetent American leaders as from day no 1 .

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