Lahore Attacks in Stark Contrast to Islamic Teachings

Last updated on: April 21, 2016 at 6:38 pm by Muslims Writers Guild of America

Lahore Attacks in Stark Contrast to Islamic Teachings 2016-04-21T18:38:09-05:00 Muslims Writers Guild of America

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by Adil Agha Khan

At least 65 people were murdered and upwards of 300 wounded in a suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan on Easter Sunday. The majority of the victims were women and children. I cannot even comprehend my own emotions regarding this matter. The fact is that it is like a sensory overload of pain which leaves me utterly unable to process this matter completely. What cowardly person would even seek to harm a single hair on the head of a child, or even speak cruelly to a woman? My own nearly 2-year-old nephew is my angel. Who is it that would seek to kill angels? My mother is everything to me. Who would seek to kill mothers?

As an Ahmadi Muslim, my heart overflows with sympathy and prayers for those affected and devastated by this attack. If someone would raise the objection that the victims were Christian, I would say shame on them. I am disgusted by people who only have concern for the members of their own community. It is utterly deplorable. The founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a true follower of the Holy Prophet of Islam (peace and blessings of God be upon him), taught his followers universal love for humanity regardless of race or faith. Ahmad said, “It is our principle to have sympathy for the whole of mankind. If a person sees that fire has broken out in the house of a Hindu neighbor and he does not get up to help put it out, I tell you truly that he is not of me. If one of my followers sees a Christian being killed and he does not go to rescue him, I tell you very truly that he is not of us.”

A Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the attacks against our innocent Muslim and Christian sisters and children. These people who claim Islam as their creed could not be further from our Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him), as it is he who said in a letter to St. Catherine’s monastery that he “abhors anything that displeases them” and that in fact “Muslims are to fight for them”. The fact is that if a Muslim dies defending a church or a synagogue, then he is considered to be a martyr.

The attack comes in the wake of protests against the execution of the murderer of Mr. Salman Taseer, a human-rights activist who had campaigned against the country’s un-Islamic blasphemy laws. Such an environment highlights the growing sympathy for extremism and persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan.

In stark contrast to the self-contradictory existence of the terrorists, the Qur’an commands that Muslims protect freedom of religion for all when it states, “If Allah (God) did not repel some men by means of others, there would surely have been pulled down cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques, wherein the name of God is oft commemorated” (22:41).

We call on authorities in Pakistan to not only bring the perpetrators of this horrific crime to justice but also to act against such religious clerics who continue to fan the flames of an environment of terror and lawlessness.

Adil Agha Khan is a member of the Muslim Writers Guild of America with B.A. Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University 2014

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