Mr. Malik and Mrs. Jariullah went straight to their cellphones, calling every relative in Lahore; not one answered. From the television, they heard gunfire crackling, grenades exploding, sirens, screams. The screen showed bodies streaked with blood.
At some point, Mrs. Jariullah realized she was quaking, and yet unable to take her eyes off the screen. Eight hours later, the couple’s worst fears were confirmed. An uncle, a nephew and a cousin were dead, another cousin wounded.
And when they drove from their home in Plainfield, Ill., to their mosque in Glen Ellyn, Bait-ul-Jamaay, they discovered their anguish had company. Of the 120 families who belong to the mosque, a dozen or more had lost relatives in the Lahore attacks. All told, 94 people were killed in the assaults by the Punjabi Taliban on Dar-ul-Zakir and another mosque, Bait-ul-Noor, during Friday Prayer.
The thread of grief connecting Lahore to Glen Ellyn was not some ghastly anomaly. At both ends, the afflicted Muslims were members of the Ahmadi (or Ahmadiyya) sect, which claims 10 million worshipers worldwide. Moderate and peaceful in their precepts, the Ahmadis are reviled by fundamentalist Muslims, especially in Pakistan, for their belief that their 19th-century founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the messiah predicted by the Prophet Muhammad.
But, but – Islam means peace….
Azusa,
Since the Ahmadis have always experienced the same sort of persecution from fellow Muslims (who don’t regard them as such) as have Christians in Muslim nations and since they [i]do[/i] appear to embody the principle that Islam means peace, I would have thought a more appropriate response would have been an expression of sorrow and solidarity with the persecuted.