British Pakistani boxer Amir Khan, two-time world champion, is on a visit to Pakistan. He has been keeping his fans updated through his social media profile. Earlier this week, he shared a photo of him visiting the shrine of Ali Hajvery, the patron saint of Pakistan’s second largest city Lahore, popularly known as Data Darbar. The Sufi saints like Ali Hajvery or Data Sahib enjoy a strong following in the Indian subcontinent as they popularised folk Islam in this region and people revere them for centuries. Amir Khan comes from a Sunni Sufi Muslim sect (or Barelvi) family who revere Sufi saints – as with the case of majority of Pakistan’s population. However, the last few centuries have seen the literalist interpretation of Islamic sources, known as Wahabism and rooted in Saudi Arabia, made its way to not only Pakistan’s urban capital but also Western Muslim communities like that in Britain.
While it was perfectly alright for the first generation Pakistani Muslim immigrants to UK, like Amir Khan’s parents, to revere Sufi saints and visit their shrines seeking their blessings; the new generation under the influence of Saudi Islam exported to the UK thinks otherwise. The reaction of the Muslim community to Amir’s Khan’s picture reveals how the thought process in young Muslims, both in urban Pakistan as well as in Muslim communities in West, has changed considerably from their parent’s generation. We are presenting below the original photo and a collection of response from Amir Khan’s Facebook page.

It starts with hundreds of people accusing Amir Khan of committing shirk, idolatry or grave worshipping.

Then some of them are disappointed. And suggest him to seek forgiveness of Allah.

And some even recommend Amir Khan of going back to Quran and learn a thing or two
.
And then there are unsolicited suggestions to ditch the shrines and go to mosques instead… will they settle for non-Wahabi mosques?
Not all people are bad. There are some nice ones seemingly allowing Amir Khan to visit the shrine, as long as he follows their list of DOs and DONTs. How generous!

Then the pro-Saudi camp jumps in… produdly claiming thankfully they are in control of Makkah and Madina or idolaters like Amir Khan would have started their ‘grave worshipping’ there too.

Clearly some of them are very embarrassed to see their favourite boxer visiting a shrine…

And then it starts getting a bit radical as peeps recommend demolition of all graves and shrines… like the Saudi have been doing for a 100 years now.

Keeps getting hot. One guy claims Muslims can only visit the two holy mosques in Saudi Arabia or the one in Palestine – the rest is all crap including the millions of mosques the world over.

And Amir Khan starts losing his fans. One guy publicly announces his the fan-breakup for his hero boxer turned out to be not-my-kinda-Muslim…

And then some fans go all out… wasteman, curses, eff off and more. Oh dear!
There are more than 2000 comments and on-going on the post and we selected only a few from the first hundred. The PR team of Amir Khan will need to work with him as for privileged Western Muslims and educated urban Pakistanis, his skill do not matter if he is a “grave worshipping, Hindu-like idolator.” Some will probably prefer him to bomb a school over visiting a shrine.
While it was perfectly alright for the first generation Pakistani Muslim immigrants to UK, like Amir Khan’s parents, to revere Sufi saints and visit their shrines seeking their blessings; the new generation under the influence of Saudi Islam exported to the UK thinks otherwise. The reaction of the Muslim community to Amir’s Khan’s picture reveals how the thought process in young Muslims, both in urban Pakistan as well as in Muslim communities in West, has changed considerably from their parent’s generation. We are presenting below the original photo and a collection of response from Amir Khan’s Facebook page.

It starts with hundreds of people accusing Amir Khan of committing shirk, idolatry or grave worshipping.

Then some of them are disappointed. And suggest him to seek forgiveness of Allah.

And some even recommend Amir Khan of going back to Quran and learn a thing or two
.



And then there are unsolicited suggestions to ditch the shrines and go to mosques instead… will they settle for non-Wahabi mosques?

Not all people are bad. There are some nice ones seemingly allowing Amir Khan to visit the shrine, as long as he follows their list of DOs and DONTs. How generous!

Then the pro-Saudi camp jumps in… produdly claiming thankfully they are in control of Makkah and Madina or idolaters like Amir Khan would have started their ‘grave worshipping’ there too.

Clearly some of them are very embarrassed to see their favourite boxer visiting a shrine…

And then it starts getting a bit radical as peeps recommend demolition of all graves and shrines… like the Saudi have been doing for a 100 years now.

Keeps getting hot. One guy claims Muslims can only visit the two holy mosques in Saudi Arabia or the one in Palestine – the rest is all crap including the millions of mosques the world over.

And Amir Khan starts losing his fans. One guy publicly announces his the fan-breakup for his hero boxer turned out to be not-my-kinda-Muslim…

And then some fans go all out… wasteman, curses, eff off and more. Oh dear!

There are more than 2000 comments and on-going on the post and we selected only a few from the first hundred. The PR team of Amir Khan will need to work with him as for privileged Western Muslims and educated urban Pakistanis, his skill do not matter if he is a “grave worshipping, Hindu-like idolator.” Some will probably prefer him to bomb a school over visiting a shrine.
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