Years ago, people would have assumed a sectarian murder in Glasgow was a product of the Orange-Green divide – perhaps an overspill from the Ulster Troubles, or football hooliganism by RC Celtic supporters against Protestant Rangers’ fans or vice versa.
Few, if any, would have identified it with the murder of a member of the Ahmadiyya sect by a Sunni Muslim – but this is the face of modern Britain.
Violent forms of Islam
In March, Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah, an Ahmadi originally from Pakistan, was brutally murdered by Tanveer Ahmed, a Sunni Muslim in a premeditated act of fanatical determination – Ahmed travelled 200 miles from Bradford to Glasgow to kill Shah, and was found laughing, seated on Shah’s mutilated corpse. The motive was nakedly sectarian – Ahmed’s statement was blunt: ‘Asad Shah disrespected … the Prophet Muhammad … the Prophet of Islam … has clearly said that “I am the final messenger of Allah there is no more prophets or messengers from God Allah after me…” … in the Qur’an that there is no doubt … no one has the right to disrespect the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad… no one has the right to disrespect the Prophet of Islam…’
