Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 20
Murder in the Name of Allah gether and defeated the reconversion movement on its own ground. The. Imam of the Ahmadiyyah Movement in Islam at the time, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, also took a positive step. He decided that there should be inter-faith conferences where the leaders of different faiths should meet and explain their beliefs in order to pull down the walls of ignorance and prejudice. He set up an annual conference for just this purpose. It was called Yaum-i-Paishwayan-i-Madhahib (The Day of. Religious Founders). On that day, for instance, a Muslim would speak of the greatness of Krishnaas or Buddha's, while a Hindu would talk of. Islam's Holy Prophetsa, putting right misunderstandings about him which were being spread by propagandists. The Ahmadi attitude during this unfortunate time of calumny and hatred was that non-Muslims should be educated and given the message of love and peace which the. Prophet of Islams gave the world. Accusations and sectarian diatribes do not help a missionary preach his faith. He should instead emphasise the good points of his religion. The Imam of the Ahmadiyyah Movement also persuaded the government of India - then British - to strengthen the law to protect the honour of religious leaders. The Punjab governor,. William Hailey, who was briefed by Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, recommended that the government of India change the law by banning material blatantly offensive to religious feeling. ' The government accepted this recommendation. A bill was accordingly drafted to add a new section to the Indian Penal Code, 295A, which made it an offence to insult or to attempt to insult the religious beliefs of any class of people. The bill was passed in 1927 by the Legislative Assembly. . But Indian Muslims were very upset and indignant at this time. A. Muslim calligrapher, Abdul Rashid, outraged by such malicious attacks on the Holy Prophet's life, murdered Swami Shraddhanand, a shuddi leader. Rashid was tried and hanged. Thousands of Delhi Muslims went to the Delhi District jail to collect his body and he was buried as a martyi. . This glorification of murder enraged the Hindus, who called Islam a religion of violence and force which relied on jihad and not reason or virtue. ² A young journalist, Abul Ala Maududi, answered these accusations in a series of articles in Al-Jamiyat, the newspaper of the Jamiyat. Ulama-i-Hind. These articles were subsequently published in book form as Al-Jihad fil Islam. . In the first part of this book, Maududi convincingly proved that the wars fought by the Prophet of Islams were defensive. He fought to establish freedom of conscience and opposed all attempts to suppress the 20