The worldwide Head and Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, has condemned comments recently attributed to Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, in which he declared that it was necessary to destroy all Churches in Saudi Arabia and surrounding Arab countries.

Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

“I was shocked and very saddened to learn that Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti has called for all Churches in the region to be destroyed. What he has said is completely against the teachings of Islam and must be condemned absolutely.

The Holy Qur’an has clearly said that there should be no compulsion in matters of religion. This means that every person should be free to practice his or her religion and have the right to worship. Based on these unequivocal teachings, how could a so-called authority on Islam ever advocate that even one church, let alone all churches, be destroyed?

The life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad is filled with examples of how he always advocated freedom of religion and worship. To give just one example, when a delegation of Christians from the city of Najran came to visit Medina, the Holy Prophet Muhammad happily gave them permission to worship in his own Mosque.

We find that the Holy Prophet Muhammad spent his entire life preaching peace, tolerance and justice. Thus there can be no other conclusion than to say that what the Grand Mufti has said is completely wrong and displays a complete lack of understanding of Islam on his part.

We, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, follow the true teachings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and thus we desire and indeed constantly strive for a world filled with peace and freedom of worship for all people.

In 2010, a very famous American newspaper sought my opinion on whether the proposed Ground Zero Mosque in New York ought to be built. In response, I said that if permission were granted, then the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat would want a Church, a Synagogue, a Temple and the places of worship of all other religions to be built alongside it, because that would show true unity in society, and my answer was based on the actual and real teachings of Islam.”

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s leading Muslim civil liberties organization, has condemned “inaccurate and offensive” remarks by GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who said that the concept of equality “doesn’t come from Islam” or “Eastern religions.” He claimed equality comes from “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:

“The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation’s highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality.

“God states in the Quran: ‘Say ye: ‘We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’ (The Holy Quran, 2:136)

“The Quran and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stress racial and gender equality. The Prophet said: ‘All people are equal as the teeth of a comb.’

“As the Prophet said in his last sermon: ‘All humankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Also, a white person has no superiority over a black person, nor does someone who is black have any superiority over someone who is white — except by piety and good action.’

“The Prophet once told a companion: ‘You are not better than people (of other races) unless you excel them in piety.’ (Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1361)

“Islam’s holy text also promotes gender equality when it states: ‘So their Lord answers their prayers, saying: ‘I will never let the (good) work of any of you, whether male or female, be wasted. You are members one of another.’ (The Holy Quran, 3:195) The Quran also states: ‘The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another.’ (Quran 9:71)

“The Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Whoever has a daughter and does not bury her alive (a pre-Islamic practice forbidden by Islam), does not insult her, and does not favor his son over her, God will enter him into Paradise.’

“We suggest that Mr. Santorum educate himself about Islam and the American Muslim community by reading the Quran that we will send to his campaign headquarters next week.”

[NOTE: CAIR has an initiative designed to send free copies of the Quran to the nation's opinion leaders and policy-makers. The Qurans are sponsored and distributed through CAIR's ongoing "Explore the Quran" campaign.

Hooper noted that CAIR recently called on Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and other GOP representatives to reaffirm their support of an American republic that treats citizens of all faiths as equals after Gingrich told a South Carolina town hall that he would only support a Muslim for the presidency if that person would "commit in public to give up Sharia [Islamic principles].”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/

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Pastor Terry Jones of Florida, one small, self indulgent man, has unleashed a flurry of hate felt all across the globe.  In his own act of hate, his small Florida church burned a copy of the Quran, something he has been threatening to do for months.  As expected, the Taliban used this act to justify their own violence. Protests in Afghanistan broke out following the Quran burning and many are turning violent.

Twenty people have been killed in the demonstrations including seven U.N. workers.  NATO officials re-iterated their condemnation of the Quran burning in an apparent attempt to quell the rising anger.

“We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Quran,” said the statement issued by military commander Gen. David Petraeus and the top NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill.  “We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Quran, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people,” the statement said.

U.S. President Barack Obama extended his condolences to the families of those killed by the protesters and said desecration of the Quran “is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry.” But he said that does not justify attacking and killing innocent people, calling it “outrageous and an affront to human decency and dignity.”

It is sort of ironic that our nation is now being judged by the act of one lunatic in the deep south.  Many Christians will quickly dismiss this instance, as they do with Westboro Baptist Church, claiming these are not “real” Christians or that their entire religion should not be judged based on a few extremists.  Excuse me?  Isn’t that what our nation has been doing to the Muslim faith since 2001?  Maybe we should just call the extremist Muslims not “real” Muslims.  Terry Jones and Westboro, however misguided they are, are still Christians.  They read the Bible and believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  Isn’t that it all takes to be a Christian?  If we expect moderate Muslims to take responsibility for their own extremist members, then Christians need to do the same.

Terry Jones needs to be held accountable for his actions.  Free speech does not apply to him any more than it would to me if I yelled fire in a crowded theater starting a stampede.  The U.S. Supreme Court has made that clear.  Jones had months to think about this and he was fully aware that his actions would have these types of consequences.  His holier-than-thou attitude is really just to get media attention.  He will get lots of media attention if he ends up jail.  Let’s grant Terry his wish.  Throw him in jail and give him the 24 hour attention he craves.

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In Sumatra, some Islamic leaders believe that religion is the key to conservation for Indonesia – the country with the highest rate of deforestation and some of the most diverse habitat in the world.

The island of Sumatra, with its population of over 50 million people, has seen its habitat disappearing fast, mainly due to oil palm plantations, and its population of endangered species such as the Sumatran orangutan and tiger is dwindling. Leaders of the religious community believe that education is key to solving the region’s environmental problems and that religion has the potential to spark wide public interest in environmental awareness.

In an article by freelance environmentalist writer Melanie Jae Martin, the spiritual initiative, who calls themselves FORDALING (the Islamic Leader Forum for Environmental Care), is said to believe that the Quran, the religious text of Islam, directly addresses the need for protecting the natural world. Martin explains that their newly released book Ayat-Ayat Konservasi (Islamic Verses for Conservation), promotes a religious mandate to respect the earth and other species. Though their material and projects, the religious leaders of Sumatra preach to Indonesian Muslims why conservation should be important to them and the world.

Martin explains that the Ayat-Ayat Konservasi consists of chapters such as “Earth, Our Collective Home,” “Leuser [National] Forest, an Invaluable Gift from Our Creator,” “Nature Conservation in the Age of Muhammad the Messenger”, and “Implementation of Islamic Principles in Conservation by Communities around the Leuser Forests.” One chapter, “The Good Deeds of Muhammad the Messenger to Wildlife,” tells how the Prophet Muhammad and his followers saw a pair of baby birds as they were traveling, and caught them. The Prophet noticed the outraged mother bird trying to rescue her babies, and told his followers to give the babies back to their mother immediately. In another story, his followers set an ants’ nest on fire, and he told them such thoughtless treatment of wildlife is unacceptable. The collection of verses highlight the Prophet Muhammad’s compassion for other species but the book also emphasizes that the consumption of animals should be humane. Furthermore, the authors draw parallels to current environmental and social concerns that stress compassion for individual animals as well as for the greater ecosystem in local practices.

The work of FORDALING involves multiple projects. The organization’s works to educate Islamic leaders on how to teach their congregations about the urgent need for conservation through sermons. Their training program has so far reached out to more than 150 Islamic scholars and leaders and 50 of its members have also taken a guided tour of Gunung Leuser National Park, a popular orangutan viewing area, to learn more about the problems facing the biodiversity hotspot.

FORDALING also works to educate the general public. Projects includes a ‘sermon roadshow’, a partnership with the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) to create easily accessible material for the general public and held a speech competition for Islamic students in Langkat and Aceh Tamiang. For this last event, 75 children participated and the winners presented their sermons in across villages and Islamic schools. Additionally, FORDALING runs conservation efforts such as tree nurseries, where volunteers raise seedlings for planting in the OIC’s restoration site in Besitang. Like many other areas, the national park there has been tainted by illegal logging and replanting with oil palms. Young Muslims are encouraged to join the group Islamic Student Nature Lover (SAPA) to learn and help with the conservation effort.

Martin cites Panut Hasisiswoyo, OIC founding director, for supporting FORDALING’s work, saying that it has the power to change people’s attitudes across Sumatra. He asserts that “with direct, religiously inspired sources to share and cite to the largely Islamic population of Indonesia, the effort to save the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan has a brighter outlook.”

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A decade after the tragic events of 9/11, the backwash of US effort to prevent any future terrorist attacks keeps turning up new revelations about questionable practices and unpleasant realities. Recently, a former Guantanamo inmate gave an interview to the BBC, describing some of the things he endured during his captivity between early 2002 and 2008. Saad Iqbal Madni was known as an Islamic scholar and prize-winning reciter of the Quran when he, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, was bundled into a plane during a visit to Indonesia and flown to Egypt. In Cairo, Egyptian intelligence agents were allegedly waiting to extract information under the auspice of US agents. “The place they put me was smaller than a grave,” Mr Madni told the BBC, “They asked me questions about [shoe bomber] Richard Reid, and if I had any information about 9/11. When I denied it, they gave me electric shocks in my knees. A few times I passed out.”

After Cairo, Mr. Madni explains he was taken to Bagram Air base in Afghanistan where they deprived him of food and kept him in isolation for 10 months. By March 2003, he was transferred to Guantanamo as classified as an enemy combatant. The main accusation was connections to al-Qaeda and planning terrorist acts – charges he denies.

During an interview with BBC’s Pakistan correspondent Orla Guerin, Mr Madni gave a detailed description of some of the traumatizing experiences he was forced to make while carrying the number 746 in Guantanamo Bay. “Since they arrest me, up to today, every second night I wake up screaming, yelling and crying,” he confessed, breaking into tears. “I can’t forget what they did to me. No one can do that with the animals. I don’t know how they can do that with human beings.”

Among other things, Mr Madni was exposed to a practice called ‘frequent flier status’. “That means the detainee is not allowed to sleep,” he said. “Every 20 minutes, every half an hour, the guards come and wake up the detainee, they handcuff him, they leg shackle him, and move him from block to block, cell to cell. If we try to get a nap the guards come and kick the doors, yelling, screaming and cursing.” The BBC report acknowledges that much of Mr. Madni’s chronicle of imprisonment cannot be independently verified, but his account echoes those of other former detainees.

Within the first year at Guantanamo, Mr Madni attempted suicide but his actions were punished with increased torture and intimidation. When contracting an ear infection, he claims that he was refused treatment and told to cooperate with interrogators if he wanted medical help. He cites doctors for telling him that he was an enemy, not a patient.

Mr Madni denies having links with extremists groups in Pakistan, though admits having met members of a hardline Indonesian Islamic group – the Islamic Defenders Front – with a scholarly purpose. He claims not to have known the US considered them terrorists. When asking the interrogation personnel about his status during the five years in Guantanamo, he explained “they just said that Washington D.C. need to keep you in here. When they decide to let you free then all the charges will be dropped”. True to word, a US court ordered his release in August 2008 where he returned to Pakistan.

However, the government of Pakistan has placed him under house arrest, listing him under the country’s anti-terror watch. “I am suffering more that I was in Guantanamo Bay,” he says, “I can’t work. I can’t see my family members. I can’t leave the city.” Mr Madni says the situation has left him suicidal. “Over there is a small cage,” he told the BBC, “and Pakistan is the bigger cage. That’s it.”

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