This post is effectively a mirror of my response comment on the /r/ahmadiyya subreddit to user ‘terrabera’, who alleges that the moderation team at the Questioning Islam/Ahmadiyya subreddit is hypocritical. I’m not sure if my comment will be approved or removed from that subreddit, so I have mirrored it here, with additional links.
As one of the many moderators of the Questioning Islam/Ahmadiyya subreddit to which you are referring (given your screenshot in the OP above), I’d like to point out a couple of clarifications to save any users here from any further foot-in-mouth type speculation.
Voting and Commenting
The Questioning Islam/Ahmadiyya subreddit only allows subscribers to vote and to comment. Among other things, this minimizes the chances of vote-brigading.
Anyone who truly wishes to vote, to comment, or to post, is welcome to subscribe and to then contribute their views and their votes.
We stand by the statement in your screenshot from our sidebar about the subreddit being a place for open discussion and religious critique.
We have believing Ahmadi Muslims posting/commenting frequently, such as /u/CogaSombie, who is very polite and detailed in his analysis and responses. We have not censored him.
The Erroneous “Anti-Ahmadi” Charge
The charge of the moderators of /r/islam_ahmadiyya being “anti-Ahmadi” is false and offensive.
We had purposely chosen to use the words “Islam” and “Ahmadiyya” in our subreddit, because we know it upsets orthodox Muslims who feel that Ahmadi Muslims are not Muslims or that Ahmadiyya Islam has nothing to do with Islam.
It was a goal of ours to frame the future discussions in the subreddit as a place where there’s zero tolerance for derogatory appellations like ‘qadiani’. By using Islamic terms in our subreddit’s very name, we’ve always sent a clear signal in that regard. We’ve removed numerous posters and comments in the past where people use such derogatory slurs against Ahmadi Muslims.
We firmly believe in the right of Ahmadi Muslims to self-identify as Muslims and to claim Islam as their religion.
To be “anti-Ahmadi”, as you charge, suggests that one is against Ahmadi Muslim people. That is simply not our position.
Most of us still have family and friends very deeply devoted to the Jama’at, whom we’ve never stopped loving. We still grieve at the plight of Ahmadi Muslims in places like Pakistan; a place which is sadly, still rife with religious discrimination.
Being critical of the theology’s truth claims and administrative practices of the nizam is not the same as being against Ahmadi Muslims people. Consider that the Jama’at’s mission, starting with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, is to “break the cross”. It would be unfair and downright misleading to state that Ahmadi Muslims are “anti-Christian”. It would be more charitable to state that Ahmadiyyat and Ahmadi Muslims are critical of Christianity—the ideology and practice—while still admiring parts of Christian teachings and still loving Christian people.
To lump those who critique Ahmadiyya Islam as “anti-Ahmadi”—putting us on par with people who are bigoted towards Ahmadi Muslims–is some serious slander. It’s like trying to appeal to people’s noble aversion to anti-Muslim bigotry and then parlaying that over into a defense of Islam as an ideology with the term “Islamophobia”. It’s slippery, manipulative, disingenuous and most of all, weak.
Removals and Bans
To date, the small number of people we have banned from our subreddit are people who have been given repeated warnings, but continued to post tabloid-like material with irrelevant gossip showcasing “Ahmadis doing bad things”.
We have no patience for such trash, as I’m sure the audience here will also appreciate. Those people, and their sock puppet accounts, are what we aggressively work to remove from our subreddit, so that we have an environment that is conducive to polite discourse that focuses on the ideas.
Your comment was removed by one of the other moderators, at their discretion, as you likened the moderation team to the members of the racist organization, the KKK.
You should ask yourself why people like you are removed, but people like CogaSombie who writes much more frequently and at length, with a strong defense of Ahmadiyyat, has no such issues or impediments in our forum.