I left the US because of their hatred towards Muslims… this is my story
Everyday I would see hate stickers against Muslims at Harvard Medical School. PHOTO: AFP
I was born in 1982, in the beautiful American city of San Jose, California. A proud patriotic Muslim American, my dad would decorate our house with lights every Fourth of July.
Fast forward to the year 2001, when I got admitted to one of America’s top medical schools – the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Moving from San Jose was hard. I stayed in the dorm. Every morning, when I went to take a shower, I saw a sticker on one of the bathroom mirrors on my floor that said,
‘Whoever is a friend of the Muslims is a traitor of Christianity and of America’.
In the evenings, sometimes, I would go to the reading room to study. Right on the entrance door, I would find the same sticker. I saw similar messages written on public vans and buses and plastered on walls across Boston. I heard fiery speeches against Islam by Christian clerics in downtown Boston, some calling for my death.
I felt intimidated, unwelcomed and unaccepted.
I often wondered why there was not a single Christian student, out of the thousands at Harvard, who had the moral integrity to tear down the hate stickers on campus – hate stickers that openly attacked me for being Muslim.
Would Christ not preach universal love and peace?
What had happened to those who claimed to follow him?
I waited and waited for my five years at medical school but these stickers never came down.
Then, when I found out that a group of Christian students had forced the administration of Mt Sinai Medical School in New York to expel all 23 of its Muslim students from that medical school, and were threatening widespread violence, I forgot my own pain for a bit. At least I was still able to pursue my studies. These other students had lost their careers merely for having an identity.
Soon after, I also found out that Muslim engineering students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were forbidden to eat in the university cafeteria and dorm kitchens. Christian student groups had complained that Muslim presence was making the food filthy and hurting the sentiment of ordinary Christians at MIT.
I forgot my pain once again. At least, I could still eat freely at Harvard.
The atmosphere of intimidation never grew calm. I had some Christian friends but most were friends as long as I did not express my religious views openly. Attacks on Muslims kept growing and discrimination against them had become an accepted norm. Even Muslim graves were attacked in cities across the US for polluting American soil. I still decided to stay in the US and help people in and around San Jose.
I continued to hope things would improve.
However, after a series of other targeted attacks on fellow Muslim doctors , I decided to leave the US in 2008. I could not take it anymore. I moved to Pakistan to pursue a career in cardiology. My friends ask me if I will ever return to the States. I think I will but not until the Christian clergy stops condemning me as ‘worthy of death’ and the American government stops jailing me for calling myself a Muslim openly and for professing my faith as I deem fit.
I miss the US a lot but I also love my new homeland. There are a few bigots here as well but I never have to worry about them . My friends come to my rescue before I know it. I am different but I am loved. I feel welcomed and accepted. I have the freedom to speak and profess my faith. Until my motherland is reformed, I shall stay in Pakistan God willing.
I am currently pursuing a degree in cardiology in Lahore and this is my story.
Key:
Pakistan = United States
United States = Pakistan
Harvard Medical School = King Edward Medical University
Mt Sinai Medical School = Punjab Medical College
MIT = University of Engineering and Technology (UET)
Christian = Other Muslims
Christianity = Islam
Christ = Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
Muslims = Ahmadis
Boston = Lahore
Lahore = Boston
San Jose = Rabwah
New York = Faisalabad
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Kashif Chaudhry
A tricky article to decipher, if you use the keys provided and open the links it paints a very different picture. Shattering the common leftist narrative of Islamophobia. From an old Newsvine seed that I saved.
A graduate of King Edward Medical University, Lahore and Mt Sinai University Hospital in New York, Kashif is currently completing his Cardiology fellowship in Boston, USA. He writes for various American newspapers and Pakistani publications and blogs at the Huffington Post. His interests include medicine, human rights and interfaith dialogue. He tweets @KashifMD (twitter.com/KashifMD)
Kashif Chaudhry is a member Ahmadiyya Islamic community, they have rejected violence as a method of advancing the faith and have been persecuted, and excluded as a result. As far I know there has never been an act of violence committed by them in retaliation for their oppression throughout the Islamic world.
The "Ummah" is said to be made up from the entire community of believers, this community in the year 1974 came together and arrived at the conclusion that Ahmadi's were not Muslims. It was only after this decree, issued by the "Ummah", that the legal and extrajudicial systemic repression of Ahmadis started in earnest.
Ahmadiyya Muslims believe that they are a continuation of the Rashidun (rightly guided) caliphate.
I tried to find reports of the things you said happened at Mt Sinai Medical School or at MIT,. Nothing but this same article copied and pasted around the web. There is no way that these things could have happened without it making the News. One Lie, Two Lies, I'll have to assume the whole story is lies.
I tried to find reports of the things you said happened at Mt Sinai Medical School or at MIT,.
Those things did not happen there. See the key a the bottom of the article or open the links embedded in the statements. They happened in the Islamic world, not in the west.
He was making a point in a roundabout way. Mt Sinai is Punjab Medical College, and MIT is the University of Engineering and Technology located in Pakistan
Key:
Mt Sinai Medical School = Punjab Medical College
MIT = University of Engineering and Technology (UET)
Well I guess missed it I'm a little hesitant to click on blind links so I just searched on my own.
At least 10 students, including seven girls, and a female teacher were expelled from Chenab Public School and Muslim Public School, Dharanwali area of Hafizabad, for being Ahmadis.
“It is extremely unfortunate that my daughters are being deprived of the most basic and fundamental human right such as education … all because of religious intolerance,” Khalil Ahmad, whose three daughters were expelled, told The Express Tribune . “I have no alternative to ensure that their education continues,” he added.
What about the constitutional provisions which ensure equal rights for all? What about the rule of law that says no discrimination can be made on the basis of faith, race, cast and creed, he questions.
“I’ve never seen Christians and students belonging to other religions ever having to deal with such restrictions,” the distraught father says.
“I personally opposed the expulsion on the basis of faith,” Muslim Public School Principal Yasir Abbas responds when contacted by The Express Tribune.
“This is not my decision … the entire village unanimously pressed me to expel all Ahmadis from the school, or else they would forcibly shut the school down,” he added.
A public meeting held in Dharanwali recently was spreading hatred against Ahmadis, Jamaat Ahmadiyya Pakistan spokesperson Saleemuddin says, adding that expulsion came in the aftermath of the intolerance that some religious preachers were bent on evoking amongst locals in the area.
“They went so far as to say that they would never allow for an Ahmadi to be buried in their graveyard, let alone allow an Ahmadi to study in a school with their children,” Saleemuddin alleges.
Soon after the hate speech, ten Ahmadi students and a teacher were expelled from local schools.