The Government of the Day Has Reason to Feel Proud

We in the Gambia are endowed with a visionary political leadership whose enviable track record will remain indelible even after their time. Our leadership is known for making history and for breaking new ground on many fronts – political, economic, cultural or otherwise.

The unprecedented initiative taken by Jama’at Ahmadiyya the Gambia to render the Holy Quran translated in three of the languages widely spoken in the sub-region is a perfect replica and complement to our government’s pragmatic and bold disposition.

Now President Jammeh can hold his head high among African Heads of State and leaders of Islamic nations and say ‘My people have done it again. The Holy Quran has been translated by them in three languages in a space of nine years’. In my view President Jammeh and his government do not care about the religious affiliation of those who produced this precious material for mankind’s consumption.

To them what matters is the fact that we are proving to the whole world that we may be a small nation in terms of land area and economic muscle, but what nobody can dispute is the fact that we are great thinkers and an ingenious people.

After-all, the task of moving the Gambia forward and making it possible for us to take our rightful position among the community of nations demands responsible citizenship, hard work, sacrifice, foresight and leading by example.

This is the driving force in Jamaat Ahmadiyya the Gambia. We have no time for bickering or inciting religious intolerance in our peace loving country. Our direction is to face the uphill task of leading Islam’s march to victory and to raise mankind from a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual glory through scholarly work and other peaceful means. Like the Successors of the Holy Prophet (saw), the mission of Khilafati

Ahmadiyya is to reform the Muslims and correct their beliefs which were corrupted through the centuries and guide them to follow the right path of Islam. Our purpose is that the love of the world should grow cold and love of God and of the Holy Prophet (saw) should fill the heart, and the soul should be weaned away from the world so that the journey to the hereafter should not appear disagreeable.

Creating the opportunity for people to read the Holy Quran in their mother tongue is certainly an ingredient for enabling them to be weaned away from the world so that they do not bow down their heads in shame on the Day of Judgment.

The Jama’at’s spiritual work is blended with provision of social and humanitarian service to mankind. Hundreds of schools, colleges, institutes and medical facilities have been built in many countries to serve mankind. Numerous humanitarian schemes, such as Humanity First, have been launched and are working round the clock. The Jama’at fully recognizes the Gambia government’s commitment to protecting and guaranteeing the fundamental rights and freedoms of its citizens to exercise and profess any religion of their choice.

The President of the Republic of the Gambia did make a remark during the traditional Koriteh courtesy call on him by religious leaders two months ago. He gave a directive that religious programmes on the electronic mass media, supposedly state media, should be scrutinized by the Supreme Islamic Council.

The first citizen said this out of good will and purpose. We do know that President Jammeh is not the type of leader who would turn a blind eye on the presentation of obscene religious programmes, such as drumming and dancing in the guise of worshiping or supplicating Allah, the Lord of the Universe, on the electronic public media.

The first citizen’s intervention has to do with use of the public electronic media, not enterprises like translation of the Holy Quran for the sole purpose of widening opportunities for the ordinary people to drink directly from the fountain of Divine guidance and law – the Holy Quran.

In some African countries translation of the Holy Book into other African languages by Jama’at Ahmadiyya was eloquently applauded and greeted with admiration by the Head of State and the entire state apparatus. By the way, there is another dimension to President Jammeh’s intervention.

The people who are asked to help the GRTS improve the quality of their religious programmes and take measures that will save Islam from ridicule are the very people who use the GRTS to slander the Ahmadiyya Jamaat.

They use the pulpit to haul inflammatory remarks against the Jamaat. There are few so-called imams in the country who go to extremes to throw abusive language at the Imam Mahdi (as), an offence that could trigger a civil war. Religion is a very sensitive issue.

Religious intolerance and extremism can throw communities or a whole nation into chaos and blood shed. No wonder, Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) says in a Hadith "In the latter days religious scholars (mullahs) will be the worst creation under the canopy of the sky’.

This is what we are witnessing today. Instead of working hard to redeem the masses from living sinful and animalistic lives by propagating Islam in accordance with the shinny examples set by our master, Prophet Muhammad (saw), they are preoccupied with rallying more and more admirers around themselves and vying with one another in amazing wealth. Gambians would hate to find themselves in religious conflict.

Many students leave the Gambia to attend colleges in the Gulf and other Arab states. This is a healthy and positive development because Islamic institutions of high learning are extremely limited in the sub-region. But there is a dangerous trend and the government of the day must wake up to it. Some of the scholars come home brainwashed and turned into fanatics and extremists.

Many of them do not only confuse Arab values with Islam but they pick up the crazy Arab mentality that whoso ever differs from your opinion and reasoning deserves to be eliminated by the sword.