JalsaConnect saw a young-looking fellow, and, after talking to plenty of elders, decided to bring some youth to proceedings and had a chat with Junaid…
Name: Junaid Bakr
Age: 23
Country: USA
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JalsaConnect: Assalamu Alaikum brother.
Junaid Bakr: Wa Alaikumussalam.
JC : How has your Jalsa been so far?
JB: It’s been good. I actually was at the US Jalsa right before coming to this Jalsa, so I can kinda see the differences and similarities between the two; it’s been interesting and fun.
JC: I’ve never personally been to the US Jalsa – tell me – how do they compare?
JB: Well, this Jalsa’s obviously a lot bigger than the US Jalsa… but it’s good to see the brotherhood here. […] For example, I was walking around London, and I got on the train to come back. We were waiting at the train station to get picked up, and someone just asked me if I was from around here.
And I said: ‘No, I have no idea where anything is – I can’t help you.’
I asked him: ‘What were you looking for?’ just to see if I could point him in the right direction, and he said:
‘Well, I’m looking for the Ahmadi… gathering…’
And I was like: ‘Oh – the Jalsa!’
JC: That is really cool! Ahmadis have a hard task nowadays trying to counter the image of Islam portrayed by so-called Muslim terrorist groups. And this Jalsa’s a big part of that.
JB: Absolutely. One thing that we are reminded of here over and over is that violence is not OK whatsoever… I mean unless you’re defending yourself. But even then, you’re not supposed to do it for yourself; you’re supposed to do it in the defence of religion – but not enforcing it on anyone else.
JC: Jazakallah.
JB: Jazakallah.
