Related post: تکفیریوں کی بستی میں ایک دن – از عامر حسینی

In the last few weeks, both Shia and Ahmadi hardliners have shown their limited vision and the utter lack of understanding their own plight. Some hardline Ahmadi activists are more focused on bashing Shias and concocting false history to support their arguments. Hardliner Shias continue to engage in non-violent takfir against Ahmadi Muslims. Both groups are heavily targeted in Pakistan.

Ahmadi Muslims face continuous attacks on their faith and have seen their rights being diminished by controversial and anti-human rights legislation by both elected governments and military dictators. Even their graves are not secure and are routinely attacked. The main groups targeting Ahmadis are the takfiri Deobandi ASWJ aka Sipah Sahaba aka LeJ. ASWJ has been responsible for two of the most recent massacres of Ahmadi muslims which include the Lahore mosque attacks in 2010 and the Mandi Bahauddin massacre in 2005. Ahmadi professionals and businessmen have also been targeted routinely in Lahore and Karachi.

Shia Muslims are the most heavily targeted faith group in Pakistan in what is increasingly being referred to as Shia Genocide. There are daily attacks on Shia professionals and youth and routine massacres – all leading back to the hate mongering takfiri Deobandi ASWJ.

At a time when Shia and Ahmadi activists are both striving to build bridges and develop a common platform, in walk the hardliners. Shia hardliners continue with the utterly senseless and anti-human rights Takfir of Ahmadi Muslims and taking their lead from an Iran that itself is shifting to a more moderate policy. It is a fact that not a single Mujtahid (senior Shia cleric) has ever issued a fatwa of takfir against Ahmadis. Currently a few hardliner Pakistani Shias are struggling to retrieve a fatwa of takfir from Iranian and Iraqi Shia clerics against Ahmadis but so far their requests have been declined by the Ayatollahs. Ahmadi hardliners continue to bait and undermine Shia activists. One Shia activist was busy defending the virulently anti-Shia Deobandi cleric and leading Taliban spokesperson, Mullah Aziz. On the other hand, an Ahmadi hardliner remained tacitly silent when anti-Ahmadi cleric, Tahir Ashrafi Deobandi was threatening LUBP for taking a stance against his (Ashrafi’s) anti-Ahmadi takfir. This Ahmadi hardliner, whose close collegues routinely promote takfiri Deobandi terrorists and hatemongers instead published an anti-Shia article whose main premise was a lie.

Both groups of hardliners place the bulk of their activism on bashing each other’s faith communities. Both rely on creating strawman arguments and concocting facts. Both groups inflate their arguments and discard facts as much as they can. Both groups engage in abuse and slander of LUBP instead of focusing on takfiri Deobandi ASWL/TTP. It is ASWJ who pose an existential threat to not just Ahmadi and Shias, but also to Sunni Barelwis, Christains, Sikhs and Hindus. Many of them shift their alliances on a regular basis – sometimes praising Imran Khan and then shifting their loyalties to Bilawal while making sure that their PML N and ASWJ ties remain secure too. Both groups of hardliners depend mostly upon clerics to make their case against each other.

LUBP welcomes the abuse and conspiracy theories of these two sets of hardliners as it tells us that we are doing something right. The abuse and slander is not just pathetic but provides moments of humour. Both groups represent the best of Ansar Abbasi, Hamid Mir and Orya Maqbool Jan in their intellectual dishonesty and the worst of their embattled communities.

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