After the attack in Westminster, Hazrat Mirza Masroor, spiritual leader of the Ahmadi Muslims rejects the violent interpretation of jihad and reintroduces the “dialogue of life” with the other religions.
No hatred. Respect, peace, fraternity, in the name of Islam. The caliph Hazrat Mirza Masroor has nothing in common - except the name - with the leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which continues to alarm the nights of European nations. And while Isis vindicates the attack on the Parliament in London, Masroor, from his London mosque, not far from the Wimbledon residential area, condemns all violence and offers an “another” vision of the relationship between Islam and terrorism.
The 65-year old Pakistani leader did not mince his words in claiming “treason and ignorance of Muhammad’s faith” on the part of those who, like the affiliates to Dahesh, kill innocent people, spread hate and preach violence. He does not hesitate to condemn the bellicose version of the Koranic jihad: an instrumental if not a vulgar simplification of a concept that is eminently of spiritual nature and belongs to the sphere of an “internal reform”.
London is a city still shaken by the unexpected attack to the heart of the democratic institutions that left four dead and 50 wounded. The onslaught of the “lone wolf” Khalid Masood, a native of Kent, who mowed down passers-by with an SUV and afterward went on stabbing the police, has left poisonous residues, especially psychologically. The proverbial Anglo-Saxon solid aplomb finds itself cracked from the awareness of being defenseless and exposed to indiscriminate aggression. Next to the general commotion and proclamations of “unity”, an outrage emerges towards the betrayal of an Anglo-Saxon citizen like Masood, whose radicalization, according to Scotland Yard, occurred during a visit to Saudi Arabia or after a period of detention.
In this city still in shock, the caliph Masroor spoke during an inter-religious assembly during the “Peace National Symposium”. Listeners were kidnapped by his message countering that of those who continue to associate the phenomenon of terrorism to the word “Islamic” ». From the white mosque Baitul Futuh, a suburb south of the capital, the “good Caliph” leads the global Muslim community of Ahmadiyya, one of the reformist current of Islam, founded in 1899 by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) in Qadian, a small city in Punjab, India.
The primary task of the new prophet was to revive Islam’s message of peace, which has been betrayed - he says - by Muslims, by retuning the umma on the “love of God and service to humanity.” His reform was totally opposed by traditional Sunni and Shiite currents, who still consider Ahmad a heretical community. An accusation that generates a fierce persecution that still blight the lives of Ahmadis particularly in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia. This hostility has not prevented Ahmadiyya from spreading in 207 countries and reach, according to estimates of the community, more than 70 million members.
Today Masroor, the fifth Caliph of the series, thanks to its Anglo-Saxon “birthright” (his is the oldest Muslim community in the UK, it took office at the beginning of ’900), is not afraid to disavow the “jihad of the sword » or mosques that” have become dens of hatred and where minds are manipulated” rather than being” places promoters of authentic peace in the world.” “In the name of Allah – he remarks meekly - those temples should be burned to the ground.”
The motto that inspires him, “Love for all, hatred for none” or the way he leads his sermons (”humanity first “), reveal the caliber of a leader fully devoted to the promotion of interfaith dialogue which finds wide open doors in those social, political and religious context wishing to defuse the clash of civilizations wanted by the Dahesh.
Christian, politicians and religious leaders in the UK and many countries of the world, members of civil society organizations, journalists, intellectuals and bloggers came in delegations from every continent, everyone wants to meet and share the caliph Masroor’s desire to “network” and awaken consciences on “the urgency of justice as a prerequisite to peaceful coexistence.” We shall confront on common solutions to the conflicts that divide peoples and religions: we need to say “healing words” the caliph remarks, “stop the selling of weapons” or “walk the path of dialogue” and create bridges focusing on “What unites”: first of all humanity, we are all part of God’s creation.
The Catholic Church and the Holy See obviously appreciate the prophetic vision of the supreme leader with the white turban. A Message of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue remembers the value of peace is “a gift of God and the responsibility of men, “citing in complete agreement with the vision of the Ahmadi Muslims, the four pillars indicated in the Pacem in Terris of John XXIII: truth, justice, love and freedom.
