@ReasonOnFaith @AsraNomani @KashifMD Ahmadi Muslims can also be part of the problem. They aren’t reformers.Read:https://t.co/LsLvYzqKNS
— Avneet Paul (@avneet_paul)
That topic is the promotion of peace (obviously admirable and welcome) versus the Ahmadi’s insistence that the reams of historical material to the counter, are not part of “true” Islam.
I agree with Avneet that these nuances are important.
The dichotomy for Ahmadi Muslims regarding peace comes down to:
- Action taken today
- Ahmadi Muslims take on historical events
Issue 1: Ahmadis and Peace Today
I completely believe that Ahmadi Muslims would never tolerate violence or terrorism. Their rejection of this is proven (long history of non-violence, clear teachings in their own interpretations of the faith, open door policy at mosques, no fatwas for death, etc.).
Being a former Ahmadi Muslim, I can state this with confidence. This is why I support Ahmadi positions so strongly on this particular slice of this particular topic.
This point is safely, a non-issue.
Issue 2: Ahmadis and a Selective Reading of History
On issues of history however, I and many others feel that the Ahmadi viewpoint amounts to a historical reconstruction. And if true, that would be a dangerous obfuscation of mountains of troubling material (popular and early biographies of the Prophet, sahih hadith, etc.).
This historical material is swiftly rejected by Ahmadis, because it doesn’t fit their peaceful narrative.
Their starting point is that Muhammad was a peaceful man, and anything that paints a different picture, must be tossed out as a fabrication. Alternatively, if that material is hard to ignore, it is given an ex post facto embellished hypothetical context that “historians must have missed”.
The volume and presence of this material from history is troubling.
This material is thrown out and so easily dismissed with sentiments to the effect of, “These are later fabrications to discredit Islam by early hypocrites of the faith, and early historians.”
The majority of Muslims do not toss out all of this material the way we and Ahmadi Muslims would like them to. As such, the Islam of the masses still has latent, dangerous ideas floating out there, that are the antithesis of peace.
Reform vs. Renaissance
It should be noted that Ahmadi Muslims (as far as I have seen) do not refer to themselves as reformers of Islam. Their take is that Islam is the perfect faith, but that it was prophesied in the Prophet’s time that Islam would become a mess until the Mahdi and Messiah came to revive its true teachings.
So, you will not get Ahmadis to challenge verses of the Qur’an. Instead, they will seek to normalize an interpretation that supports a superior ethical voice than the simpler reading espoused by many of their coreligionists.
Ahmadi Muslims prefer to view their movement as the renaissance of Islam. As such, their ability to depart from the Qur’an is limited. They do not represent the sort of break-out thinking that many non-Muslims are yearning for the Muslim world to produce.
Case in point: Ahmadiyya Islam does not have a place for gays in their theology, except to privately advise gays to deny themselves real love and keep their sexuality to themselves. You won’t see Ahmadi Muslim spokespersons eager to address this topic. It’ll get dodged and sidestepped until the two-minute news clip clock is run down to zero.
For that kind of ground-up, fresh restart, you really have to look to groups like the Muslim Reform Movement instead.