He disrespected the messenger
Tanveer Ahmed, the Bradford man accused of murdering Asad Shah, issued a statement on Wednesday explaining why he did it. The statement is exactly as disgusting as you would expect.
Ahmed made no plea when he appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Wednesday for a full committal hearing in private but after the hearing he released a statement through his lawyer, John Rafferty.
The statement said: “This all happened for one reason and no other issues and no other intentions.
“Asad Shah disrespected the messenger of Islam the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Mr Shah claimed to be a Prophet.
“When 1,400 years ago the Prophet of Islam Muhammad peace be upon him has clearly said that ‘I am the final messenger of Allah there is no more prophets or messengers from God Allah after me.
”’I am leaving you the final Quran. There is no changes. It is the final book of Allah and this is the final completion of Islam.
“‘There is no more changes to it and no one has the right to claim to be a Prophet or to change the Quran or change Islam.’
“It is mentioned in the Quran that there is no doubt in this book no one has the right to disrespect the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and no one has the right to disrespect the Prophet of Islam Muhammad Peace be upon him.
“If I had not done this others would and there would have been more killing and violence in the world.
“I wish to make it clear that the incident was nothing at all to do with Christianity or any other religious beliefs even although I am a follower of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him I also love and respect Jesus Christ.”
What a terrible, hideous, mindless, cruel religion Tanveer Ahmed believes in – one that wants human beings to murder other human beings over nonsense about who is or is not the last “prophet.” A god that was any good wouldn’t want that at all, and would have the decency to tell humans so in unmistakable terms.
Mr Rafferty said: “My client Mr Tanveer Ahmed has specifically instructed me that today, April 6 2016, to issue this statement to the press, the statement is in the words of my client.”
His statement certainly underlines what a terrible religion he and those like him submit to.
I find it interesting that Ahmed mentioned Christianity. It is as if he doesn’t want anyone the think that Asad Shah was killed for being friendly with Christians. The press made a big deal of Mr Shah’s Easter message, presumably for the reason that it was assumed the killer was some Christian fanatic. Ahmed seems to have taken this publicity as a worry that Muslims might want to harm Christians and seems to want to reassure Christians that they are safe and that he is only concerned with killing Ahmadi Muslims for their blasphemous beliefs — a very strange mind set.
In Islam, where Jesus was a prophet but not divine, I think the killer was wrong to call Jesus “Christ”. Can someone who knows more about Islam than I do confirm that?
In my view, the murder was religiously motivated, so I’m not trying to make a No True Scotsman fallacy to say that religion is good by definition versus bad behavior being not true religion.
My point is sociology might establish a statistical correlation that religiously motivated killers lack knowledge of facts about their religion.
Dave, it has become ubiquitous even amongst Christians that people think “Jesus Christ” is simply a name; many Christians I know simply assume “Christ” was the family name of Mary and Joseph, for example…and while they are not theologians, it would be seriously wrong-headed to argue that they aren’t Christians based on that fact.
So you can’t really fault a non-Christian for not understanding the etymology of “Christ” enough to realise that it implies something a little bit more than their religion is willing to accept. That string of facts is obscure even to most sincerely-devoted Christians, so lack of familiarity with it says nothing at all about the killer’s understanding of his own religion.
And it’s *always* the case that *all* religious people “lack knowledge of facts about their religion”. That doesn’t make them any less sincere, nor their motives any less religious.
“Disrespecting the prophet Mohammad is worse than murder. Therefore, murdering all who disrespect him constitutes a reduction in crime in the community.”
– Shorter Tanveer “Fuckhead” Ahmed.
I wonder how this atrocity will be justified by Islam’s army of professional apologists. More multi-culti pixie dust perhaps.
Dave Ricks,
The Islamic ‘Jesus’ and the Christian ‘Jesus’ are separate and distinct creations, rather like their gods. Any Muslim who calls Jesus, ‘Christ’ is very, very confused. Muslims who claim that their religion ‘respects’ Jesus are being disingenuous.
So far there haven’t been the pained articles about the cultural disrespect and the prevalent racism that drove Ahmed to this of course unacceptable act. The Guardian even ran a lengthy article about the hatred of Ahmadis that is held and propagated by other Muslims including high ups in the main Glasgow mosque.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/09/shunned-for-saying-theyre-muslims-life-for-ahmadis-after-asad-shahs
The Ahmadis seem more tolerant and less exclusive than the Deobandis, which the BBC are doing a couple of programmes about. A Muslim-turned-atheist, a woman, appears, saying she was converted by reading The God Delusion.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=The%20Deobandis&suggid=urn%3Abbc%3Aprogrammes%3Ab07766zw
The Beeb’s tone is of breaking news about the exclusive and intolerant Deobandis’ control of 40% of mosques in the UK, but Harry’s Place has run pieces about them for the last decade or so.
KB Player @6
“So far there haven’t been the pained articles about the cultural disrespect and the prevalent racism that drove Ahmed to this of course unacceptable act.”
I can confidently predict that there will be, perhaps it will be the Ahmadis’ fault this time, after all ‘they’re not really Muslims’. It will be interesting whether or not the usual suspects will try the “Muslims fear backlash ” whine on this occasion.
Muslims lay claim to complete editorial control over the entire Judeo-Christian tradition with their ‘Final Prophet’ routine.
Just ask Iran’s Bahai community.
People are still skipping over the killer’s ‘point.’
Asad Shah was an Ahmadi. Like the Bahais, the Ahmadi are followers of a religious leader born after 632 CE.
This is, of itself, a death penalty offense according to a substantial part of the Sunni ‘community.’ A Sincerely Held Religious Belief, no less.
Seth, for what it’s worth, I agree with your comments in #3 as elaboration on my 2nd paragraph in #2 where I said that was not my point.
My point in #2 was wondering if social psychology could identify patterns of mental states that might correlate mathematically with extremism like assassination. But most hypotheses in science are dead ends, so I don’t know.