The murder of Asad Shah
A horrible event in Glasgow Thursday night –
A well-respected Muslim shopkeeper who wished Christians a happy Easter and appeared to speak out against violence was killed in an attack police are treating as “religiously prejudiced”.
Asad Shah was found seriously injured outside his shop in Minard Road in the Shawlands area of Glasgow on Thursday night and pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
The Scotsman says a Muslim man has been arrested.
My liberal Muslim friends on Facebook are saying Shah was an Ahmadi, and that Salafi extremists now dominate Glasgow mosque, having kicked out all the moderates.
Back to the Scotsman:
An Easter greeting from an online account apparently belonging to the 40-year-old Mr Shah, who was described as a “much loved” member of the local community and a “friend to many” had been posted earlier that day.
The Facebook message read: “Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation x!”.
Included in a series of posts and videos on the page in recent days were calls for peace and “love to all beloved mankind”.
Earlier this month in a video he called for a stop to “disorder” and “bloodshed” and urged people to live together in peace.
He also said: “All the religions failed to create peace and heaven on this earth, Now the situation is very critical. My dear beloved all mankind we were not created to see this kind of situation on this earth.”
All that, plus the neighbors say he was a very sweet guy. There was a vigil for him last night.
One of the vigil organisers, Eildon Dyer, said: “It was very respectful. There were a lot of people clearly very upset. There were a lot of tears and lots and lots of flowers.
“Everybody has said he was the nicest man. He was clearly much-loved. Everybody had nice stories to tell about him and warm stories. It’s just very, very sad.”
John Sargeant urges solidarity:
I wrote last year about my fears that theocratic killers would strike against other Muslims and ex Muslims in the UK. That we needed to challenge the theocratic justification that is disseminated to kill them.
This has come too late for Asad Shah. An Amahdi Muslim, the message he put up in his newsagents wishing Christians a Happy Easter summed up their philosophy of love for all, hatred for none. Hours later a Muslim stabbed him to death multiple times, and sat on his chest laughing.
The reports saying it was another Muslim that killed him, misses the nature of the attack. Shah was the wrong kind of Muslim. His killer plunged the blade into someone he regarded as an apostate – someone worthy of death.
Islamist fanatics victimize other Muslims first and most. Religious fanaticism is not good for anyone.
Ahmadis have never had the chance to demonstrate moderation. They are a minority, regarded as apostates and hideously oppressed in Pakistan. They can be arrested for handling Qurans.
The movement had a founder who was treated as a prophet, or at least enough like one for the rest of the Muslim world to get their knickers in a twist. See, god stopped talking when Mo died. No new thinking, no new leadership, no reform, can EVER be permitted.
What a terrible, senseless act that has produced nothing but tragedy.
A man lost his life. What did his killer gain? Nothing.
What did the community lose? A friend, a colleague, a symbol of the fact that it is not just possible, but very important, that we set aside religious differences in our dealings with our neighbours, so we can all become friends. Violence only destroys; it solves nothing.
My heart goes out to his family, friends, and neighbours.
Simply heartbreaking.
The victim lived the idea of Islam being a religion of peace.
I’m glad the suspect is in custody, but I wonder how many sympathizers he has. How can we better protect the moderate/liberal Muslims?
I have no sympathies with this person. Acknowledging Easter was a vile Islamophobic attack on The Prophet, and death should be a minimum punishment. I just worry about the effect this has on nice devout Muslims like Anjem Choudary, like someone could start a hashtag or something and do irreparable damage to his psyche.