I reject their contention that they are being "true" Muslims by mercilessly butchering the innocent in the name of God. And I am saddened and dismayed beyond words when a great number of those innocents belong to the same Islamic sect as I - the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

On Feb. 6, in yet another heinous act of evil in the name of Allah, an estimated 1,500 angry Muslims armed with bamboo poles, spears, knives and machetes viciously attacked 20 unarmed members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in a rural village in south Banten province, Indonesia.

Three Ahmadi Muslims were brutally killed and five seriously injured at the scene while dozens of policemen stood by and watched.

The motive for the attack? Ahmadis are considered heretics in Islam.

Calls by hard-line Muslim clerics and political leaders for the disbanding of the Ahmadiyya sect and for the persecution of its members often result in Ahmadis being the victims of looting, arson and unrepentant murder by mobs of the kind that attacked the Banten Ahmadis on Feb. 6.

Critics of Islam say that what passes for the faith of nearly 1.5billion people today, in all its brutish rage, is merely the fruit of the seeds planted 1,400 years ago in the deserts of Arabia - that Islam started out violent, evil and oppressive and stayed that way, true to its core principles. Peaceful Muslims, they say, aren't being "true" Muslims.

Others, myself included, answer that a religion whose primary descriptive is "peace" cannot then be its opposite. It has devolved into the barbarity and inhumanity we now see visited upon its perceived enemies, within and without, but that is a result of the corruption and decay of the faith from its pristine understanding and practice, not a product of its original design and manifestation.

This is evident following the advent of Islam in the 7th century AD by the moral, social and spiritual transformation of pre-Islamic Arabia into a civilization whose light eventually reached Europe, ending the Dark Ages.

Muslims today who believe in bloody Jihad and killing the innocent have lost sight of the real purpose and message of Islam - to attain peace and Oneness with God, and peace and brotherhood with humanity. These ideals form the true foundation of Islam and are the main reasons people convert to Islam. This is the Islam practiced and preached since 1889 by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, now in over 195 countries. Their motto is: "Love for All - Hatred for None."

Peace-loving Muslims and non-Muslims must join forces to empower this type of Islam to counter its extremist forms. They can do this by standing up for and with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, either in membership or in sympathy, and through the applied rule of law to protect the innocent and end extremism and hate in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia.

To paraphrase a well-known truth that we must all take to heart, "All that is required for evil people to triumph is for good people to do nothing." I am proud to be an Ahmadi Muslim and I choose to stand with the good.