I wrote last year about my fears that theocratic killers would strike against other Muslims and ex Muslims in the UK. That we needed to challenge the theocratic justification that is disseminated to kill them.
This has come too late for Asad Shah. An Amahdi Muslim, the message he put up in his newsagents wishing Christians a Happy Easter summed up their philosophy of love for all, hatred for none. Hours later a Muslim stabbed him to death multiple times, and sat on his chest laughing.
The reports saying it was another Muslim that killed him, misses the nature of the attack. Shah was the wrong kind of Muslim. His killer plunged the blade into someone he regarded as an apostate – someone worthy of death.
To those of you that say, well it is only a theocratic state that is meant to do this under certain conditions, so this is the work of madmen. This misses the Islamic State claims such powers as a caliphate. It misses the persecution that religious minorities suffer under Islamic State constitutions – not least the Ahmadi in Pakistan. It misses the distinction between people who have no rationality, and those with a bloodlust to have their way by calculated means of terror.
Solidarity by saying “I am Ahamdi” is the counter narrative to such justifications. Muslims recognising the Ahmadi as Muslims, challenging the dehumanising of them that occurs. We all have a part to play in this.
Some were quick to call this murder islamophobic. I hope they will be equally quick to condemn the sectarianism and religious fundemantalism behind the killing. To decalre Ahamdi Muslims as part of the Umma, to be one with them as with all humanity. To call them Muslims.
Shah wished all, regardless of their faith or none, love and happiness. He ultimately died for living up to those values. There is no resurrection on the third day for him, but those values can be our salvation this Easter as Europe once again comes to terms with a Jihadist attack in Brussels.
The theocrats want to divide us, to hate, to treat differently. They must not succeed. But unless Government and civil society act and take all forms of extremism seriously, this will not be the last such murder here.
For more on tackling such extremism look at the FATE (Families Against Terrorism and Extremism) initiative.
Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog
Follow @JPSargeant78
Email: JSargeant78@gmail.com
Homo economicus' Weblog 
It seems very strange to hear a non-Muslim asking Muslims to accept Ahmadis as Muslims. Why should they? What business is it of anyone else…especially non-Musims? It seems to be a latest trend among the Left to dictate to Muslims what their Islam should be.
It’s akin to Muslims asking atheists to accept Christians into their ranks. All that should be expected from Muslims (or anyone else) is that others are left alone, free to practice their religion without fear of discrimination or physical attacks.
It’s called solidarity – if you want to kill Ahamdis you kill all of us, for I am Ahmadi, I am not separate from your hatred that would destroy our common humanity.
This is what it means to be human. That is why the concept of humanism exists across the world.
You have the used the murder of an Ahmadi shopkeeper by an Islamic extremist to be a platform from which you disseminate more hatred. This is appalling! There is absolutely no time that is the right time for you or anybody to criticise the eulogy for Mr Shah. Nobody is dictating to Muslims as to what they should believe. How can you distort what has been written about this killing? On the contrary, it is extremist Islamists that are dictating to the rest of us what we should believe. Mr Shah exemplifies the goodness in humanity. Your post scares me.
See comment to James below. This place is nuts.
You’re an Ahmadi? Seriousy?
Who said anything about killing Ahmadis? I was complaining that you feel the need to dictate to Muslims what they should believe.
I think the problem is people using a knife to dictate what people should believe, whilst I am calling for people to show solidarity and end the fatwas that call on Ahmadi to be discriminated, and in some cases killed.
But you focus on what you think is important in the story, while the massacres and killings continue throughout the world against the Ahmadi.
“I am calling for people to show solidarity and end the fatwas that call on Ahmadi to be discriminated, and in some cases killed.”
You’re calling for more than this with:
“Muslims recognising the Ahmadi as Muslims”
Why should Muslims have to do this? What business is it of non-Muslims?
So you saying it was correct for him to be killed?
I think I’ve walked into the Left’s equivalent of Jihad Watch here 🙂
It really isn’t much of an imposition on Sargeant’s part to entreat Sunnis to accept Ahmadis. That’s because an Ahmadi was just stabbed to death by a Sunni, apparently for the simple crime of existing. Your response? Predictably, it’s the usual defensiveness and a rather pissy, sanctimonious, depressing little post.
And if Sargeant’s perfectly reasonable call for tolerance and the subsequent, incredibly mild responses you’ve received collectively put you in mind of “Jihad Watch”(!) then all I can do is I congratulate you on nurturing one of the most amusingly pathetic persecution complexes I’ve ever seen.
The hype on here reminds me of JW
Sunnis do not need to accept Ahmadis. Go tell ultra-orthodox Jews they need to accept Zionist Jews. Or…how about leaving people alone to believe in what they want to? Sounds like a much better idea to me.
You sound sexy.
‘Wah, wah, wah’.
You’re a big boy/girl. You’ll live.
I sound sexy? Why thank you my insecure little friend.
This is mild compared to the REAL psychotic haters of Islam over in Harry’s Place 😦
“To decalre Ahamdi Muslims as part of the Umma”
Oh dear, the poor author has really failed to do a basic research of Ahmadi history in relation to Islam i.e. it is the Ahmadis, themselves who by their actions, do NOT want to be part of the Ummah. Ask any Ahmadi if they are willing to reject the teachings of Qadiani ?
This had nothing to do with religion. It was a disenfranchised victim of racism who was reacting to UK/US/Israeli foreign policy, global capitalism, and Tony Blair’s teeth whitening regime. Obviously the reaction was a little extreme, but it’s a little like last year when those anti-militant secularists got a little out of hand when pushed too far by a cultural imperialist and racist magazine. The customers and staff of that Kosher supermarche just happened to get themselves in the way. Religion didn’t enter into it.
Exactly – nothing to do with religion. It’s simply a coincidence – an unimaginably improbable coincidence – that it looks otherwise.
Glad to see someone else keeps a level head, and sees through the neo-con propaganda