Protesters Burn Indonesian Mosque

I. Citation
Title- Protesters Burn Indonesian mosque
Date Written- 04-28-08
URL- BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7370650.stm

II. Summary
Recently religious differences have caused violence to rampage through a town called Sukabumi which is located on the western end of Java (Southeast Asia.) Islam is a well practiced religion in Sukabumi, most people in this area happens to be Sunni Muslims. Although, in this town there is also a small sect of Islam known as Ahmadiyya, this sect believes that their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was also the final prophet of the Muslims. Because there are differences in who was the final prophet of the Muslims among these sects, it has caused destruction to both sides of this battle. Just recently 300 Sunnis and others against the Ahmadiyya sect burned down Ahmadiyya community’s mosque and chanted, “Burn, burn, kill, kill.” Many people of the Ahmadiyya sect have been frightened leaving the city to seek refuge with friends and family hoping they will not be killed. The Ahmadiyya community happens to be one of the smallest sects of Islam with only 200,000 followers in Indonesia. People of this sect are treated like dirt by other Muslims; this sect has also been described as, “deviant and weak.”
III. Reaction
This article relates to the AP World History theme, “Impact and interaction among and within major societies.” This is because the warfare and bloodshed that is happening in this town shows interaction even though it is happening through fighting. This causing many deaths, and Ahmadiyya escapees from Sukabumi.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the founder of the Ahmadiyya sect, he created it in 1889. He claimed that he was the Messiah and a divine power. This sect spends more time using the Sharia than the Koran. When Ahmad was spreading his religious thoughts to areas surrounding India many found his thoughts and teachings repulsive and disgusting. (Ahmad’s goal was to turn Islam into its “pristine” form.) Many Muslims did not even recognize this sect a part of the Islamic religion. Due to his claims of being a divine spirit many think lowly of the Ahmadiyya community.

We are not giving any hints or indication as to who is the writer of this article. Therefore we cannot justify why the writer is reporting in a certain way.

In the article the writer says a line comparing the Ahmadiyya community to other Islamic sects in the area. The writer states, “The hard-line Islamist demonstrators believe the Ahmadiyya practice to be a deviant.” This seems to be an exaggeration since the writer uses deviant in a very opinionated way. In other words he is describing the Ahmadiyya community to be out of the norm. The writer also tells that the Islamist attackers said this yet he never quotes any Islamic attacker who explain there hate for the Ahmadiyya community. Therefore we can’t know to what extent the attackers hated the Ahmadiyya sect.

The point of view of a Muslim attacker is needed to get a full understanding about this event. From this attacker we would learn as to what extent these people disliked the Ahmadiyya community. We would also learn why they feel they should destroy and vandalize the lives of others in Sukabumi

I believe that it is horrible that the Ahmadiyya community is being attacked. The people of this sect have not gone and hurt Sunni Muslims. They want living with peace, but the other Islamic sect seems to feel that because they are bigger they can hurt people who are less in number than them. (This is basically a fight between the majority and minority.) The bigger sect has no right to violate and destroy property of the other smaller sect. Just because one community has different views on a religion does not mean you can come and destroy those people. People have a right to chose what they want to believe in.