Even those of us who dislike Islam the ideology, that dislike does not encompass those who try to either reform Islam or who come from branches that are relatively untainted by the acceptance of violence in comparison to other branches or sects within Islam. One of those groups that have taken the sows ear of Islam and tried to make a silk purse out of it are the Ahmediyya. They are probably, along with some sects of the Ismailis, one of the few sections of Islam that I have no problem with and which could generally be called peaceful.
Because of who and what they are, any civilised and intelligent nation should want to include the Ahmediyya in any meeting or grouping that includes representatives of the religion of Islam. Unfortunately the UK Government has decided to cave into pressure from the more extreme sects of Islam, which occupy mainstream Islam, and exclude the Ahmediyya from a Government list of Muslim religious organisations.
This is an act of cowardice by the UK government. It is going along with the anti-Ahmediyya hatred that exists in the UK Muslim community a hatred that has resulted in at least one murder of an Ahmediyya by a religious Sunni Muslim.
The National Secular Society has decided to get involved with this tale of exclusion and ask the government to explain themselves.
The National Secular Society said:
The National Secular Society has urged the government to explain why it has “accommodated” hatred of Ahmadi Muslims, after they were apparently removed from a list of Muslim denominations in a review.
The NSS has written to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), which is leading a review of the government’s engagement with faith groups, after comments from Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh.
Last week McDonagh, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, asked for a debate over the review in parliament.
She added that MHCLG had “quietly removed Ahmadi Muslims from the list of Muslim denominations after angry representations from radical groups such as Khatme Nubuwwat”.
The NSS has now written to Robert Jenrick, the department’s secretary of state, to urge him to investigate the allegations.
Whilst I am not a fully fledged supporter of the National Secular Society as they are not really friends of those of us with a religious belief, I must commend the NSS for speaking up for the Ahmediyya like this.
The Ahmediyya are consistently oppressed by mainstream Islamic denominations and I find it completely and utterly disgusting that the UK Government has caved into demands by hate filled mainstream Islamic groups to possibly exclude Ahmediyya from a list of Muslim groups. The UK Government would not countenance, for example, caving to pressure from right wing Jews to exclude Liberal or Reform Jews from any list of Jewish denominations in the UK, they just wouldn’t do it, any list of Jews in the UK would include the whole community not just the ones that the Ultra Orthodox like. We must therefore ask why the UK Government has decided to cave in to pressure from Islamic groups to exclude the Ahmediyya?
