.... Islam is a brittle faith. It cannot stand to be challenged from within. It regards converts as being traitors, defectors from the Army of Islam. That is why converts out of Islam — apostates — can be severely punished or killed.
Most dangerous of all those apostates are those who become Ahmadis, for Ahmadiyya Islam can be confusing to mainstream Muslims. That is why, right now in Pakistan, the most important story is not about the state of the economy, or the general election coming up this July, or the gas pipeline that is being built to run from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Pakistan and then to India, or what global warming means for the country’s stability.
Nor is it about the Taliban’s activities in challenging the state. No: the main story is about gathering data on 10,000 Ahmadi converts, scarcely visible, but seemingly an endless threat, in a country of 201 million. [New English Review] Read more
