Tagblasphemy

Muslims: To Stop ISIS and Other Terror Group from Disparaging Islam, We Must Clearly Explain the True Concept of Jihad

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Originally published on Patheos The year 2015 can be remembered as the year Daesh (ISIS) dominated the news media in the Western world, from beginning to the end. It began with the merciless attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo that drew worldwide condemnation, enslaving of Yazidi women, burning of a Jordanian pilot and ending with a spectacular attack in France and inspiring mass murder...

Muhammad cartoon

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As a member of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, I condemn the attack on the event hosted by American Freedom Defense Initiative in Garland, Texas, where the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad were displayed. As a Muslim living in the U.S., I also bring to question the intent of the organization hosting this event. If the intent was to dishonor Prophet Muhammad, then I ask, how does one dishonor a man with...

Why Is It So Easy To Arrest a Person For Blasphemy In Pakistan?

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Originally published in Foreign Policy On May 13, 2014, police in the province of Punjab announced that they had registered a complaint of blasphemy against sixty-eight lawyers who had been involved in a protest against a police officer. The protest started after a senior officer allegedly detained and beat one of the lawyer’s colleagues. During the protests, the lawyers had called out the...

COMMENTARY: Blasphemy charges pervert Islam’s teachings

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Originally published in Religion News Service   (RNS) Sentenced for professing his atheism, Alexander Aan was recently released after 18 months in an Indonesian prison. Masood Ahmad has already served over two months in a Pakistani prison for reading the Quran as an Ahmadi Muslim. Pastor Saeed Abedini languishes in an Iranian prison for preaching Christianity. They are but a sliver of the...

Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws

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Originally published in the Liberty Magezine Religious blasphemy laws can be a touchy subject, especially in Pakistan, where just bringing up the subject of the blasphemy laws and whether they are right or wrong is considered, well …blasphemous. This wasn’t always the case. The sentiment behind most blasphemy laws is easy to understand. No person or group should insult another religion’s beliefs...

Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws

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Originally published in Liberty Magazine  Religious blasphemy laws can be a touchy subject, especially in Pakistan, where just bringing up the subject of the blasphemy laws and whether they are right or wrong is considered, well …blasphemous. This wasn’t always the case. The sentiment behind most blasphemy laws is easy to understand. No person or group should insult another religion’s beliefs or...

Blasphemy Laws and Pakistan: Whose Islam Is It Anyway?

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Billa was his nickname. A poor, uneducated Christian boy who cleaned sewer lines, removed garbage and, on a good day, played cricket with us on the streets of Lahore. I fondly remember how he could hit the ball out of the park and make the team proud. But life in Pakistan was rife with contradictions. In the afternoon, the team heard sermons narrating Muslim stories of equal treatment of non...

Making Islamic sense of free speech

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Originally Published in The Washington Post While many celebrated the winter holidays, news broke of the arrest in Saudi Arabia of liberal writer Turki Al Hamad for allegedly insulting Islam on Twitter.  We also heard of another Saudi activist, Raif Badawi, who was arrested in June and will now continue with his trial, accused of apostasy for ridiculing Saudi Arabia’s religious police and making...

Muslim Community Denounces Terrorism

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Originally Published in Mercurynews.com Four Californian Muslims have been arrested on account of their plans to join the Taliban and kill Americans. This comes as a big hit to me as a 23-year-old Californian Muslim. Like most Muslims, I wholly condemn these people. But as a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, denouncing such acts is part of my DNA. My fellow Americans, know that organized...

Bus ads promote hatred of Muslims

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Originally Published in TheNorthwestern.com   Here we go again. Pamela Geller is at her best one more time, this time taking her hate campaign to Chicago’s CTA buses. I agree with her in that “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” The point of contention is about who here is civilized? After millions of years of evolution is this how we define...