On Islam

20.07.06 Dear Anwar Hussain saab, I read your letter in the Asian Age of 19th July where you said all are Muslims who want to follow Islamic teachings and calling some Islamists who want to live according to the Islamic Shariah would suppose there are Muslims who are non-Islamists. What you say is, by experience, true. All consider themselves Muslims, including Ahmediyas who are not allowed to consider themselves so by the Pakistani government. Then again there are the Sunnis and Shias, all Muslims but who still consider each other different. So probably the writer sought to call the more conservative Muslims Islamists. These are nomenclatures and could be useful to differentiate the heterogeneity that Islam has actually turned out to be. If you would be kind enough, I request you to please enlighten me on why Prophet Mohammad had to cleanse Mecca of its idols in order to begin his religion? Does this not prove that Mohammad was intolerant of other religions? (You might say that he only reclaimed the Grand Mosque, which was defiled by the idols, for Islam. This implies that Islam existed before Mohammad taught it. If it indeed existed and traces its origin to Prophet Ibrahim, all I have to say is that Prophet Ibrahim too was an iconoclast, who started off by breaking the idols his father worshipped. Anyways, intolerance!). Awaiting your comments.