A Target Rich Environment

April 11, 2016 2:19 PM

The incredibly gracious way Muslims welcomed a man who had drunkenly shot their mosque [SLWP]
posted by chavenet (15 comments total)

This is wonderful. I needed some good news today.
posted by domo at 2:32 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd like to see a whole lot more of this type of news and these types of people. All of them. Change is possible.
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:37 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gracious indeed! It would be great if stories like this were more prevalent (perhaps without such extreme violence) and publicized.

While I'm generally in favor of much more lenient sentencing than is the norm in the US, and humbled by the mosque's efforts to reduce charges I'm shocked that Hakey didn't receive a weightier sentence or charges. Perhaps prohibiting him from gun ownership could be a good start.
posted by stillmoving at 2:39 PM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Gracious indeed! It would be great if stories like this were more prevalent (perhaps without such extreme violence) and publicized.

Yes. "Man does not engage in gun violence, realizes that he is an ignorant bigot, does better, decides that his neighboring Muslims are pretty much OK" would be a nicer story, but this is the world we have to live in. I mean, it's way better than "man inflamed by anti-Muslim rhetoric, shoots up mosque, kills 12."
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:01 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

But rather than hate him back, Dr. Mohammed Qureshi, president of the Baitul Aman “House of Peace” Mosque, wished he had been a better neighbor by making an effort to get to know Hakey and his wife. Perhaps then, he reasoned, Hakey would not have harbored so much anger.


He's a bigger man than I am.
posted by Hoopo at 3:20 PM on April 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

A nice story, thanks for posting it! Most readers will probably zip right past this, without grasping the import:

Qureshi’s mosque practices a type of Islam called Ahmadiyya, a reform sect that believes the Messiah has already come.

The Ahmadiyya are considered heretical by most orthodox Muslims, both Sunni and Shi'i, and as that Wikipedia article says, "In some countries like Pakistan, it is practically illegal to be an Ahmadi Muslim. ... Ahmadis are continuously persecuted in Saudi Arabia. ... Ahmadis in the UK have endured killings, mass protests by other Muslims against Ahmadi mosque edification, and threats and intimidation." So not only do they have do worry about anti-Muslim bigotry like this, they doubtless have at least a low-level concern about bigotry from orthodox Muslims.
posted by languagehat at 3:37 PM on April 11, 2016 [37 favorites]

He's a bigger man than I am.

The Mosque is for the Ahmadi community so he may be relieved that it is just a random person who can be educated and reasoned with shooting at them as opposed to the state-sanctioned/tolerated persecution the Ahmadis get in Muslim-majority countries.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:39 PM on April 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Or what languagehat said.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:40 PM on April 11, 2016

...I'm shocked that Hakey didn't receive a weightier sentence or charges.

I don't think he's been sentenced yet. Though it does say he pleaded guilty for "damaging religious property" which sounds like a bit of an understatement, yeah.
posted by ODiV at 3:53 PM on April 11, 2016

 → Ahmadis are continuously persecuted

Yes; in Glasgow, the owner of a corner shop I used to go to was recently stabbed to death for being Ahmadi.
posted by scruss at 4:09 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I read the article I thought "An Ahmadiyya mosque? They're really getting it from all sides."

Thanks Languagehat and others for expressing this more fully.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:20 PM on April 11, 2016

When I read the bit on Ahmadiyya I though "finally something Sunnis and Shias agree on".

And this kudos to this guy for wading back into the cesspit of Facebook comments to try to save a few souls. He really does have the ultimate thread shutdown.
posted by GuyZero at 4:49 PM on April 11, 2016

That sent me down a wiki-hole through Ahmadiyya to its founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's "prayer duel" with Scottish evangelist and faith healer John Alexander Dowie, founder of Christian Apostolic Church and Zion, Illinois. "Under Wilbur Glenn Voliva, Dowie's successor, the church was noted for its adherence to a flat earth cosmology."

Ahmad won the duel by outliving Dowie by a year.
posted by larrybob at 5:34 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Glasgow killing scruss referenced was really sad - it's not as if Glasgow doesn't have quite enough sectarian tension to be getting on with. And pity the suspect's defence lawyer, whose client made him give a public statement self-justifying the attack because Shah 'disrespected' Islam.

You don't disrespect Islam by living a life of peace and tolerance. You disrespect it by invoking its name in the killing of someone who wishes you only well. You wazzock.

If there is an upside to all this, it's that it makes people aware of the fact that there are many Muslims who deserve the respect and support of all of us, through their plain humanity, and that there are other Muslims who are as downright nasty and dangerous as anyone you'd care to put up from our own ranks of dangerous nasties. It's not about Islam. it's the same old same old we all have to deal with, so don't get distracted.
posted by Devonian at 5:50 PM on April 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sigh. Yes. Ironically, in Pakistan, Ahmadi Muslims are prohibited from calling their places of worship mosques. The state's treatment of Ahmadis is an ongoing source of shame to me and many like me. I fervently wish there were more of us.
posted by bardophile at 11:12 AM on April 12, 2016 [2 favorites]