Two years ago, gunmen shot dead Farooq Kahloun’s newly married son Saad Farooq, 26, in an attack that severely injured Kahloun, his younger son Ummad, and Saad’s father-in-law, Choudhry Nusrat. Saad died on the spot. In Pakistan after travelling from his home in New York for the wedding, Nusrat died in hospital later. Four bullets remain in Kahloun’s chest and arm. A bullet lodged behind the right eye of Ummad, a student in the UK, was surgically removed months later.
My New Year’s resolution is to not die for my faith. I’d hoped that 2012 would bring a revolution among Muslims and Muslim-majority nations to free oppressed minds. Yet I find myself still waiting to not die. That’s the “curse” of being an Ahmadi Muslim in too much of the Muslim world. Ahmadi Muslims believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) is the long awaited messiah and Mahdi the Prophet Mohammed foretold, sent to unite mankind and establish peace. But this isn’t …
As we prepare to lay 26 souls to rest in Newtown, Conn., countless are left behind, alone. As long as good people have existed, bad things have happened to them. And as long as religion has existed, believers and non-believers alike rightfully ask, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” Islam’s answer to the question of suffering does not serve to “justify” or mitigate the pain associated with the horror of losing a child. Nor does it …
May 28, 2012 was the 2-year anniversary of the Taliban’s attack on two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan. That day, the Taliban murdered 86 Ahmadi Muslims and 1 Christian