Police have in fact charged the suspect Tanveer Ahmed with “religiously prejudiced” murder. For Asad was an Ahmedi Muslim, a minority sect persecuted as “heretical” by much of Pakistan’s Sunni Muslim majority. With these facts in mind, Asad Shah has probably become Britain’s first spillover case of Pakistan’s ongoing and vicious blasphemy inquisition being waged by that country’s increasingly belligerent mullah mafia.
The Ahmedis emerged in North India under the British Raj in the 1800s, and their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmed from Qadian claimed to be the embodiment of Jesus the Messiah, returned. Such a claim has certainly caused controversy among the Sunni Muslim majority within the Indian Subcontinent.
Regardless, only the stone-cold and heartless could ignore the campaign of persecution that has been unleashed since upon Ahmadis by my fellow Sunni Muslims, especially those of the Barelwi denomination. Many would expect extremists, such as the Khatme Nubuwwat group that enforces the Finality of the Prophet, to celebrate Asad’s murder online. Beyond that, we would prefer to assume the best in Muslims, and insist that the extremists are but a “tiny minority.” A closer look reveals a dispiriting and disturbing truth.
Just how widespread and institutionalized this persecution is, are questions that few want to ask.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member