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Houston Publisher draws criticism from Muslims over Ahmadiyya ads
Pakistan Times publisher Sheikh Najam Ali has been looking over his shoulder every day for a month since running an ad that proved controversial in the local Muslim community. The ad, announcing a local Ahmadiyya celebration and describing the faith as Muslim, prompted death threats from anonymous callers, cancellations from advertisers and the removal of his papers in bulk from various distribution sites, he said.The ad and subsequent coverage of the event has drawn criticism from some Muslims who say Ali has insulted them by giving authenticity to a sect that they consider non-Muslim. 'I had no idea there would be this kind of reaction' said Ali, whose free Urdu weekly has a circulation of 15,000 in the Houston area. Members of the Ahmadiyya faith, an estimated 70 million worldwide, follow Islam's main tenets. But contrary to mainstream Muslims, they don't recognize Muhammad as the final prophet. Instead, they believe another prophet followed in the 19th century named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who came in the spirit of Christ to revive the religion of Islam, said Mohammed Zafarullah, a local imam for Ahmadiyya followers. Established in 1889 in Punjab, India, the faith is considered non-Muslim by Pakistan's constitution and heretical by some Muslims. Ali's decision to run the newspaper ad, twice, and cover the event in a subsequent news article brought his values as a businessman and journalist against his sensitivity toward offending fellow Muslims. So far, he's put his job first. 'I don't care how many advertisers I lose. I'm taking a stand on this one. I have rights,' said Ali, who is Shia. 'It was just an advertisement. It has nothing to do with my beliefs.' His job entails running ads without discriminating against any particular faith and covering the entire Urdu-speaking community in Houston, he said, and that includes those who are Ahmadiyya followers. The Pakistan Times isn't the first Urdu publication to be targeted in the U.S., says the Committee to Protect Journalists. Last year, the publisher and editor of the Urdu Times as well as the editor in chief of the Pakistan Post, both based in New York, received threats for their coverage of alleged criminal activities by Pakistani-Americans living in New York City and opinion pieces by Jewish authors. Some Muslims in Houston have been vocal about their disapproval of Ali's decision to run the ad, in which the group calls itself Muslim and says the second coming of a religious reformer has already arrived. A similar ad ran in English in a local South Asian weekly, Voice of Asia, but received no reaction, according to its editor. Ali should have known better than to run the ad in a paper read mostly by Muslims and Pakistanis for whom the mention of the Ahmadiyya faith raises memories of an age-old dispute, said Atif Fattah, the co-host of a local Muslim radio show, called Serat-e-Mustaqeem, or The Righteous Path. He's told listeners who called into his show about the paper's coverage to pull their support if they didn't like it. 'By doing this he's telling us he doesn't care about the community,' Fattah said. 'So we're saying, 'The community doesn't care about you.' ' Advertiser Amer Zaheer, owner of a vitamin company called Herbäl Phärma, canceled his ads via e-mail. 'My suggestion to you is pray to Allah to forgive you and guide you not to commit such a sin in (sic) future,' Zaheer's e-mail reads. He declined to comment. Other advertisers who have canceled their ads also declined to comment or said the move was an unrelated business choice. Those against the ads are displaying their lack of tolerance for other faiths, said Rodwan Saleh, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston. He noted that the newspaper was within its legal rights to run the ad and news story. 'In America, everybody has a right to exist and worship,' Saleh said. 'What difference does it make if the Ahmadiyya group came and claimed whatever they claimed and asked to be part of the mainstream? What if this was a Jewish group or a Buddhist group?' Posted by: john frum 2008-06-22 |
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