Atif Mian
On Thursday, June 5th, the principal of Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad, expelled every student who belonged to the Ahmadi community from the college.
A total of twenty three students, fifteen female and eight male, across the five years of medical school have been expelled as a result. Further details regarding the incident can also be found in reports from the BBC and from the Daily Times.
The Ahmadi students were “accused” of preaching their religious beliefs. The principal was pressured into expelling the entire Ahmadi student body by a mob of protesters belonging to Islami Jamiat e Talaba. The mob circled the Principal’s office and demanded the expulsions. The same day, a mob of about 300 college students also barged into Ahmadi students’ rooms, beat them and threw their luggage out of their rooms.
What makes this incident especially troubling is the fact that the decision to expel Ahmadi students was taken by a government-run medical school, under full knowledge of the relevant Punjab ministries.
As an academic, and a Pakistani, I am totally appalled by this latest incidence of religious fanaticism. One hopes that the present Punjab government turns a page, and instead of supporting the forces of extremism, comes to the protection of its ordinary citizens.
Atif Mian is Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business.
Ibrahim says he would “blow his nose on the Constitution of Pakistan”
That is basically the sum of Pakistan’s problems, isn’t it true?
In the modern world religion has no place in the sphere of government and public institutions. The covert, underhanded persecution of non-Muslims recommended by Islam–that is, taxing and restricting non-Muslims out of existence–is better than conversion at the point of the sword but not by much. It is still discrimination on the basis of religion. It does not belong in twenty-first century governance and is a violation of the human rights of the sufferers.
The only countries in the world that have any future are those which practice public sector secularism. America itself is veering dangerously close to abandoning this principle and we can see the result.
Jameel, when you write that even people who have never heard of Islam are doomed to hell, you do know that you sound just like a fundamentalist Baptist preacher, don’t you? That’s the lynchpin of their philosophy and the root of all their busybody missionary activity.
American Baptists have cross-pollinated fundamentalist Muslim movements to a great degree. Sometimes Muslims just take Christian missionary documents and copy them wholesale, substituting “Allah” for “Jesus”. The first time this happened was documented in Turkey, although cases have turned up in Egypt as well. This makes for funky reading when you get to end-times beliefs :)
The whole phenomenom is an interesting subject. Jameel, you should find out something about it. You would be surprised how many of your *Islamic* ideas have their roots in the American version of Christianity.
Really, you sound like an MK (missionary kid). it’s not just the Ahmedis who have changed their beliefs over the years. Like them, the Salafis and Wahabis are the result of certain changes and processes that have taken place over history. The Wahabis do not represent a “pure” or “original” Islam any more than any other group of modern Muslims.
There’s been a book written on the subject of Christian propaganda and its influence on Muslims, if I can locate the title, I’ll put it on here.
Cheers, all.
For Ibrahim and for Zecchetti who seems to support him.
You say you WANT TO BLOW YOUR NOSE WITH THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN. For once the Mullah’s are giving honest statements
I guess if you hate Pakistan that much I have nothing to say to you.
I guess this proves, again, that Mullahs never wanted to create Pakistan and now that it is created they are doing everything to destroy Pakistan. From suicide bombings to violence against minorities to saying how they want to “blow their nose” with the constitution of Pakistan. I guess you want to also burn Pakistan’s flag, kill all Pakistanis and see Pakistan destroyed.
For those of us who love Pakistan, your message of hate for Pakistan which you have finally exposed here is just not acceptable.
So, please go to a cave somewhere with Osama and other and leave us Paksitanis alone. We want nothing of you or yours. While you want us killed and dead, we do not want to kill you. We just want to be left alone to live normal lives without your message of hate.
“Pissing of the Ismaili
Pissing of the Ismaili’s would be hard..because that would mean you get rid of AKU :-)
To Eidee Man and Dewana Phir:
Thank you both for correcting my mistake. I was remembering this some years back in college when this was still the case. But still given the number of Muslims in the world, we have virtually no representation in the fields of science, technology, and advancement. My point in stating that was that our so called “Islamic” society as it exists today, rather than enhance both spiritual and worldly knowledge, in reality actually supresses and retards it. It’s no wonder that even those Muslims that did win the Nobel prize in their respective fields, were mostly educated in the west and not in the Muslim educational instituations. It is extremely disturbing to me as a Pakistani to know that this kind of behavior is being encouraged at the highest level of intellectual institutions in my country.