The name of Islam is being misused and exploited by a small section of radical Muslims for their vested interests and nefarious agenda, but their actions give a bad name to Muslims in general. The Imam of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat of New Zealand, Maulana Shafiq ur Rehman said in an exclusive interview with The Indian News on the occasion of Eid ul Fitr. Maulana Rehman said the very meaning of word Islam is to surrender to almighty and peace to all. He said this text of Quran has been preserved for last 1400 years and has not changed in any way since then.

The suave and soft-spoken Imam didn’t shy away from answering tough questions like when Islam is perceived as a religion of peace why there is always a Muslim associated with all violent incidents anywhere in the world. Maulana answered this saying there are many reasons to this and the most important reason behind this violence is the politics. He said the whole world knows who is behind supplying all the arms ammunitions to the world, and such powers would never want peace in the world since their economies are war based. These world powers keep playing their dirty games by making vulnerable communities fight with each other, sometimes in the name of Islam or sometimes in other names. He said there is no Muslim country in the world making those deadly arms and ammunitions. Its up to Muslims to understand this agenda and not to play in hands of such powers.

On being asked about why the moderate Muslims like him, do not speak up and stand against the violence and bloodshed being unleashed against innocent people, Maulana stressed that there is a large number of Muslims who do so, but their voices are not heard, and it also remains under reported in the media. Maulana said its very sad that in countries like Pakistan (he hails from there) state has a lot of interference in the religious matters. In an ideal society state has no business to meddle in the religious matters but unfortunately that’s not the case in Pakistan. They have in fact declared moderate Muslim community like Ahmadiyya as non-Muslims in Pakistan. He said this gives some people an opportunity to snub us here in New Zealand to say who we are to speak on behalf of all Muslims despite, we refer to quotes of Quran. He said it doesn’t matter if we are declared non-Muslims in Pakistan, we still follow Islam and its teachings and have our presence across the globe in around 215 countries as a law-abiding citizen of that country.

Maulana said religion or faith is not something for public display but it’s a spiritual connect between man and the almighty. He said Islam is a moderate religion and Ahmadiyya Muslims are the true face of Islam since we are following the Islamic teaching in a peaceful and selfless manner. -Yugal Parashar