Carleton’s Ahmaddiya Muslim Students’ Association (AMSA) is trying to set the record straight on Islam and the prophet Muhammad in the wake of violent global protests about the film Innocence of Muslims.
When Innocence of Muslims hit YouTube this summer, the film was met with outrage from Muslims around the globe for its portrayal of the prophet Muhammad. The 14-minute movie inspired violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.
The Ahmaddiya Muslim community is a separate branch of the Islamic faith.
Imtiaz Ahmad Sra is an Ahmaddiya missionary in Ottawa, and was one of two speakers at an AMSA event Nov. 28 to talk about the movie. Sra said he wants to denounce the movie and explain Muhammad’s true teachings to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
“When Prophet Muhammad was attacked with words . . . his reaction was never violent. Not to go out on streets and set fire . . . and cause destruction. This should not be the response of Muslims,” Sra said.
When Sra was promoting the AMSA event at Carleton, he said he spoke with students, including practicing Muslims, who did not believe he was telling them the truth about the messages of Islam.
“Many a time I had to open the holy Qur’an and give reference to what I said. Many of them are shocked,” he said.
But it’s not just youth who accept what they’re told by authority at face value. Sra said it’s the reason why violent protests occurred this summer in more than two dozen countries.
“The unfortunate thing is that many people do not read about the life of the prophet Muhammad. Many people do not read the holy Qur’an. So whatever is fed to them by the clergymen . . . they just take it for granted,” he said.
Sra said Muslim leaders often twist the teachings of Islam for their own benefit and encourage Muslims to cause harm and destruction.
“We simply do not support these violent protests. It is strictly against Islam teachings,” Carleton AMSA president Arslan Ahmed said.
Addressing these misconceptions is the goal of AMSA’s event, Ahmed said.
He said the portrayal of the prophet Muhammad in Innocence of Muslims, as well as the nude caricatures published in satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo shortly after the film was released, are wrong.
“We cannot go about answering these images, the best thing we can do is educate people about who he really was,” Ahmed said.
Sra said in the case of the anti-Islamic film and cartoon series, freedom of speech was not applied properly to promote truth and morality.
“Publishing the caricatures and producing such movies do not achieve this. They are based on false accusations and . . . they create hatred and animosity amongst the people living in a society. We believe publishing caricatures of any religious person of any religion is neither democracy or freedom of speech,” Sra said.
The missionary does give credit to the Canadian media’s role in the conflict. Sra said he was given the opportunity to educate people about the prophet through media.
“But we see quite the contrary to elsewhere,” he said.
Sra said all he can do is counteract violence through leading by example.
