Ahmadiyya by country |
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Ahmadiyya in Pakistan are members of the Ahmadiyya Community. The number of Ahmadiyya in the country has been variously estimated to between 0.22% and 2.2% of Pakistan's population. [1] [2] [3] [4] Hence, Pakistan is the home to the largest population of Ahmadis in the world. The city of Rabwah in the province of Punjab used to be the global headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Community before they were moved to England.
Ahmadis in Pakistan have often come under religious persecution and discrimination. [5] According to a Pew Research Center, only 7% of Pakistanis consider Ahmadis as Muslims. [6]
The Ahmadiyya movement originated in the city of Qadian. Following the independence of Pakistan, Ahmadis moved to the city of Rabwah to establish their headquarters. There have been a number of notable Pakistani people who have belonged to the Ahmadiyya Community, including the country's first Nobel Prize laureate, Abdus Salam and Pakistan's first foreign minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan. Ahmadiyya and Mahdavia constitute the two main Mahdi'ist creeds in Pakistan. [7]
Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad, the second spiritual leader of the community, ordered the cleric of Ahmadiyya Community in England named Maulana Abdul Raheem Dard, to talk with Jinnah. He met Jinnah in King's Bench Walk, London and they spoke for three hours. [8] Jinnah agreed to it and returned to India.
Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, drafted Pakistan Resolution, [9] Ahmad advised the Ahmadis to support All India Muslim League in the elections of 1945–6. [10] Khan also gave a speech in London for the freedom of India.
Khizar Hayat headed the local government in Punjab in 1946, supported by Congress and Akali Dal. Muslim League opposed his government. Due to the boycotts engulfing the Punjab, he resigned as Premier on 2 March 1947. Later, he moved to Pakistan for a few years and then to California, where he died.
After the creation of Pakistan, some Ahmadis with the Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad came to Pakistan and constructed their own city which they considered a promised land.
A massive persecution was launched by anti-Ahmadiyya groups to persecute the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community by Islamists including Jamaat-e-Islami. The Government of Pakistan put down the unrest. The Ahrar sect was banned shortly after.
Amidst more massive persecution and the appearance of an Anti-Ahmadiyya movement called Tehreek-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, Pasban Khatme Nabuwwat launched by all Islamist parties. They forced the Government of Pakistan under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to pass a constitutionally Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan for declaring members of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as non-Muslims.
Under president Zia-ul-Haq, an anti-Ahmadiyya ordinance was made in the Constitution of Pakistan which restricted the freedom of religion for Ahmadis. According to this law, Ahmadis cannot call themselves Muslim or "pose as Muslims" which is punishable by three years in prison. [11]
Following the enactment of these two amendments, which legalized persecution of Ahmadis, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, the caliph of the community, shifted the central headquarters to London in 1985.
Qadiani and Mirzai are the derogatory terms used for Ahmadis. Anti-Ahmadiyya groups have called for an Islamist jihad to finish off the community. [12] In 2018, Azad Jammu and Kashmir parliament unanimously declares Ahmadis as non-Muslims. [13]
Pakistanis usually label Ahmadis as Qadianis, which is a derogative term to the community. [14] Pakistan's Second Amendment to the Constitution officially declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslims. [15] [16]
Qadiani or Qadiyani is a religious slur used to refer to Ahmadi Muslims, primarily in Pakistan. The term originates from Qadian, a small town in northern India, the birthplace of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement. While it is pejorative to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, it is used in official Pakistani documents.
Rabwah, officially known as Chenab Nagar, is a city in Chiniot, Punjab, Pakistan on the bank of Chenab River. It was the headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from September 20, 1948 when the community relocated from Qadian, India to the newly created state of Pakistan, where the community leased the area of present-day Rabwah from the government to establish its home. This continued until 1984 and the establishment of Ordinance XX. In 1984, the headquarters were moved to the United Kingdom with Mirza Tahir Ahmed, first to London and then in 2019 to the Islamabad compound in Tilford, Surrey.
Sir Chaudhry Muhammad Zafarullah Khan was a Pakistani jurist and diplomat who served as the first Foreign Minister of Pakistan. After serving as foreign minister he continued his international career and is the only Pakistani to preside over the International Court of Justice. He also served as the President of the UN General Assembly. He is the only person to date to serve as the President of both UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice.
Qadiyani Problem is a 1953 book written by Pakistani scholar Abul A'la Mawdudi. The term "Qadiyani" is a term which refers to members of the Ahmadiyya movement.
Mirza Nasir Ahmad was the third Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from Pakistan. He was elected as the third successor of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 8 November 1965, the day after the death of his predecessor and father, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad.
Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad was the second caliph, leader of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the eldest son of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from his second wife, Nusrat Jahan Begum. He was elected as the second successor of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 14 March 1914 at the age of 25, the day after the death of his predecessor Hakim Nur-ud-Din.
Ordinance XX is a legal ordinance of the Government of Pakistan that was promulgated under the regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq on 26 April 1984 and is meant to prohibit the practice of Islam and the usage of Islamic terms and titles for the Ahmadiyya Community. The ordinance bars Ahmadi, who are deemed Non-Muslims under the Pakistani constitution, from publicly practising the Islamic faith and also disallows them from using any Islamic texts for praying purposes. It is in addition to – but separate from – the 1974 Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan. While the Second Amendment declared that Ahmadis are non-Muslims, the Ordinance prohibits Ahmadis from identifying themselves as Muslims.
The Fazl Mosque also known as The London Mosque, is the first purpose-built mosque in London, England. It was opened on 23 October 1926 in Southfields, Wandsworth. At a cost of £6,223, the construction of the mosque and the purchase of the land on which it stands, was financed by the donations of Ahmadi Muslim women in Qadian, Punjab, British India, with support from the British Muslim convert Khalid Sheldrake. Between 1984 and 2019 the Fazl Mosque was the residence of the caliphs of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, and therefore its de facto international headquarters. The administrative headquarters now lies at the site of the Islamabad, Tilford.
The Ahmadiyya branch of Islam has been subjected to various forms of religious persecution and discrimination since the movement's inception in 1889. The Ahmadiyya Muslim movement emerged within the Sunni tradition of Islam and its adherents believe in all of the five pillars and all of the articles of faith required of Muslims. Ahmadis are considered non-Muslims by many mainstream Muslims since they consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the movement, to be the promised Mahdi and Messiah awaited by the Muslims.
Ahmadiyya, officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ) is an Islamic messianic movement originating in British India in the late 19th century. It was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who said he had been divinely appointed as both the Promised Mahdi and Messiah expected by Muslims to appear towards the end times and bring about, by peaceful means, the final triumph of Islam; as well as to embody, in this capacity, the expected eschatological figure of other major religious traditions. Adherents of the Ahmadiyya—a term adopted expressly in reference to Muhammad's alternative name Aḥmad—are known as Ahmadi Muslims or simply Ahmadis.
The 1953 Lahore riots were a series of violent riots against the Ahmadiyya movement, a faith marginalized in Pakistan, mainly in the city of Lahore, as well as the rest of Punjab, which were eventually quelled by the Pakistan Army who declared three months of martial law. The demonstrations began in February 1953, soon escalating into citywide incidents, including looting, arson and the murder of somewhere between 200 and 2000 people. Thousands more were left displaced. According to the official inquiry conducted by the Punjab Government, the actual number killed in these riots was around 20. The first page of the inquiry says that before the declaration of martial law, the police killed two people on the night of 4th March and ten the 5th. 66 people were admitted to Lahore hospitals with gunshot wounds. The military attempting to quell the disturbances in Lahore admitted to killing 11 and wounding 49. There were additional casualties in other towns. Seeing that police were unable to contain the increasingly widespread unrest, Governor-General Malik Ghulam Muhammad handed over the administration of the city to the army under Lieutenant General Azam Khan, imposing martial law on 6 March.
Bahishti Maqbara, located originally in Qadian, India, and then in Rabwah, Pakistan, is a religious cemetery established by the Ahmadiyya Community as a directive from the community's founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, made known in his booklet Al-Wasiyyat. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad established it in his will after he saw an angel showing him the place of his burial.
Majlis-e Ahrar-e Islam, also known in short as Ahrar, is a religious Muslim political party in the Indian subcontinent that was formed during the British Raj on 29 December 1929 at Lahore.
Ahmadiyya is a minority religion in Bangladesh. Although the first Bengalis to join the religion did covert during the lifetime of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the religion was first established as a community in the region of Bengal in 1913 by Syed Muhammad Abdul Wahed, during the Caliphate of Hakeem Noor-ud-Din. As the worldwide community is itself is an highly organised group under the Caliph, the national community works under the name Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Bangladesh or Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Bangladesh. There are an estimated 100,000 Ahmadis in the country as of 2004.
The word Mirzai is a religious slur used to refer to Ahmadis by many South Asian Muslims, primarily in Pakistan where they have been persecuted from early days and specially after the passage of Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan which declares that Ahmadia are not Muslims and Ordinance XX. Ahmadis are the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.
In the period spanning from late May to early September 1974, an altercation between students of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba and youths of the Ahmadiyya Muslims Community at the Rabwah railway station. This incidents were marked by a series of events such as protests, violence, property damage, and governmental actions against the Ahmadiyya community across Pakistan. These events reportedly resulted in casualties among Ahmadi individuals and damage to Ahmadi mosques. Furthermore, in response to these events, the government took actions, including constitutional amendments, related to the status of Ahmadis.
Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad Sial (1887–1960) was a companion of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the first Ahmadi missionary sent from India, under the leadership of Hakeem Noor-ud-Din, the first Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya movement. In 1913, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad asked for volunteers to serve as Ahmadi missionaries in England. Sial volunteered and travelled to England on June 22, 1913 and arrived the following month. There he served twice as a missionary. He earned an MA in Arabic from the Aligarh Muslim University.
Akhundzada Mohammad Abdul Ghafoor Hazarvi was a Muslim theologian, jurist, and scholar of ahadith in Pakistan. He was active in the Pakistan movement, and served as a member of Council of Islamic Ideology. He was the companion of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Maulana Zafar Ali Khan and was active in the independence movement of Pakistan against the British Raj. He was a Sufi of the Chishti Sufi order and the founding member of the religious Barelvi Sunni strain political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP). He became its president in 1948. He was also a political figure in Pakistan and was the first recipient of Nishan-e-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan. He was also the chairman of Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatme Nabuwwat, an organisation opposed to the Ahmadiyya Movement that waged a campaign against Mirza Ghulam Ahmed's claim of prophethood.
Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatme Nabuwwat is the programmatic name of a Pakistani Barelvi organization and Islamic religious movement in Pakistan aiming to protect the belief in the finality of prophethood of Muhammad based on Quran and Sunnah concept of Khatam an-Nabiyyin. It was founded by Mohammad Abdul Ghafoor Hazarvi in 1950 with Zafar Ali Khan, Abdul Hamid Qadri Badayuni, Khwaja Qamar ul Din Sialvi, Syed Faiz-ul Hassan Shah, Ahmad Saeed Kazmi, Abdul Sattar Khan Niazi, Pir of Manki Sharif Amin ul-Hasanat, Muhammad Karam Shah al-Azhari, Sardar Ahmad Qadri and Muhammad Hussain Naeemi. Later on the prominent Barelvi leaders Shah Ahmad Noorani, Shaikh ul Quran Allama Ghulam Ali Okarvi, Pir Muhammad Alauddin Siddiqui, Muhammad Shafee Okarvi, Syed Shujaat Ali Qadri, Iftikharul Hasan Shah and Khalid Hasan Shah also joined them to oppose the Ahmadiyya Movement.
International Majlis-e Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e Nobuwat Bangladesh is a right wing Islamist organization in Bangladesh that seeks to ban Ahmadiyya faith in the country.