The Victims Within

The term “Qadiani” shouldn’t be a slur, but it is.

Qadian, located near Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, is to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam what Bethlehem is to Christianity. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya group, was born there in the 19th cen­tury. Since its formation, which coincided with the rise of reform­ist movements among Hindus in undivided India, this revivalist group has been persistently isolated and harassed by other sects.

“Ahmadiyyas are not Muslims.” This is the common refrain from Muslims of all sects to any query on the mistreatment of the Ahmadiyyas, who are a microscopic minority with 1.5 lakh members in India, which, with its more than 20 crore Muslims, is home to the second-largest Muslim population in the world.

Why not? “Because they don’t believe that Prophet Muhammad is the last prophet.” That is the standard answer. Certain recent de­velopments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana’s capital Hyderabad attest to the relentless hate campaign against the grouping that has, worldwide, lived on the fringes of Muslim societies.

In India, though, Ahmadiyyas are considered part of Islam, and courts have time and again emphasised that they cannot be discriminated against because of their beliefs.

As late as mid-July, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs lashed out at the Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board’s resolution that de­scribed Ahmadiyyas as “kafirs” and non-Muslims. The Centre said such pronouncements are part of a hate campaign. The ministry sent a letter to Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary KS Jawahar Reddy to take prompt action. “A representation dated 20.7.2023 has been received from the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, vide which it has been stated that certain Waqf Boards have been opposing the Ahmadiyya Community and passing illegal resolutions declar­ing the community to be outside the fold of Islam,” it said, adding that the Waqf Board neither has the jurisdiction nor authority to determine the religious identity of any community. On July 26, the Ahmadiyya community expressed its “gratitude” to the ministry and Smriti Irani “for safeguarding their Rights to Reli­gious Freedom” as declared in a tweet. The Andhra Pradesh State Waqf Board passed a resolution in 2012 declaring the Ahmadiyyas as non-Muslim. The resolution was questioned by the Andhra

Pradesh High Court, which ordered its interim suspension.

On July 25, to add insult to an injury sustained by democratic, multicultural India, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, a prominent Muslim organisation, threw its weight behind the Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board and said that its stance on the Ahmadiyyas is a “unanimous position” of all Muslims. Despite efforts by successive govern­ments for justice for the Ahmadiyyas, they are not represented on the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, which highlights the interests of Muslims in matters of personal law. A government official who is a member of the minority community states, “No­body among the clergy wants to think differently and change with the times, especially about how to conduct themselves in a secular country. After all, India is not an Islamic country and they should realise that they need to be more flexible and accommodative.”

The Ahmadiyya community in Andhra Pradesh is crestfallen that Sunnis and others are treating them like untouchables in a democratic, secular nation. Speaking to Open, K Tariq Ahmad, spokesperson, Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at India, which is head­quartered in Qadian, said, “The biggest problem is that because the Waqf Board doesn’t treat us as Muslims, our religious rights are being trampled upon. Apart from that, we would face nu­merous difficulties in the future because we cannot renovate or rebuild properties without a no-objection certificate from the Waqf Board, which it is not ready to grant. As a result, we can­not approach government authorities for permission to repair or rebuild any of our properties or do construction in any of the properties we possess.”

The purpose of all this—amidst various politicians in these states conniving with the Sunnis—maybe land grabbing, fears Ahmad.

It is not just Ahmadiyyas in India who are discriminated against. In countries such as Pakistan and elsewhere, the Ahmadi­yyas are one of the most discriminated communities. A case in point is the plight of the late Nobel Prize-winning physicist of Pakistan, Abdus Salam, who is hardly mentioned by that coun­try’s rulers because he was born in an Ahmadiyya family.

Meanwhile, Tariq Ahmad also shared a press release issued by the organisation on July 26, stating that every person has the right to identify with any religion of their choice. “No organisation or institution can deprive them of this fundamental right,” it notes. “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community India is grateful to India’s Ministry of Minority Affairs for denouncing the resolution that declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims. The ministry immediately responded to our request and stated that the concerned resolu­tion is against the law and unconstitutional,” the statement adds.

The release, signed by Tariq Ahmad, goes on, “India is a demo­cratic country. It is home to different ideologies, where people of different faiths and religions live together with love and brother­hood. According to the Indian Constitution, every citizen of this country has the right to identify with any religion of their choice. Despite this, some Muslim organisations and Waqf Boards seek to undermine the religious rights of the Ahmadiyya Muslim com­munity. This is nothing but an attempt to create disorder in the peaceful atmosphere of the country and to incite people against the Ahmadiyya Muslim community.” The statement added that as far as the definition of a Muslim is concerned, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community accepts only such a definition that has a strong basis in the Holy Quran. “The Ahmadiyya Muslim com­munity accepts and practices upon these foundations [five pillars] of the Islamic faith with all heart and utmost sincerity. We are a peace-loving community that completely abides by the laws of the land. The community is well-known throughout the country for its various endeavours for the cause of peace.”

Separately, in a video statement, Tariq Ahmad said that various clerics make false accusations against the Ahmadiyyas—includ­ing that they do not believe in the holy founder of Islam, Prophet Muhammad. “All these allegations are utterly baseless and false. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community believes in Prophet Muhammad with all sincerity and considers him to be Khatam an-Nabiyyeen [the Seal of the Prophets]. We are ever ready to offer any sacrifice to establish and uphold his honour,” his statement said. He also reminded the detractors of the Ahmadiyyas within Islam that in the 2011 Census report, the Indian government recognised the Ahmadiyya Muslim com­munity as an Islamic sect.

The Ahmadiyyas are spread across India and if the Waqf Board disallows no-objection certificates for even renovating properties the community owns for religious purposes, it will have a far-reaching impact on their religious freedom across the country.

Kannur, Kerala-based lawyer Jameel Ahmed, in the meantime, points out that although there have not been similar legal cases related to property used by the Ahmadiyyas in Kerala, as it has happened in Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh, he cites three landmark judgments that lay to rest any confusion over whether or not the Ahmadiyyas are Muslims. “Two were before India’s Independence, in which verdicts were given by the high courts of Patna and Madras, which said that if a person becomes an Ahmadiyya after marriage, such marriage cannot be nullified stating that it amounts to conversion into another religion because the Ahmadiyyas are also part of Islam,” he says, adding that another verdict was delivered by the late Justice VR Krishna Iyer. His verdict in the Shihabuddin Koya case of 1971 was about whether adopting the Ahmadiyya faith by a Muslim would be an apostasy. Iyer said in the judgment, “Every departure from orthodoxy is not apostasy, although witch hunt is not the mo­nopoly of any particular religion.” He added that looking at the issue devoid of sentiment and passion and in the cold light of the law, “I have no hesitation to hold that the Ahmadiyya sect is of Islam.”

Distinguished jurist Tahir Mahmood had written that what guided the judges in all such cases is that the fundamental declara­tion of faith in Islam does not categorically say that Muhammad is the “last” prophet. Besides, according to him, the Ahmadiyya literature notes that their founder Ghulam Ahmad is a “sub-prophet” and not a prophet.

In his seminal work written in 2020, Far from the Caliph’s Gaze: Being Ahmadi Muslim in the Holy City of Qadian, Nicholas Evans narrates the trials and tribulations of the sect in the Islamic sub­continent where it was born. “Within South Asia, where the Ah­madiyya community was founded, the Ahmadis’ faith continues to be subject to verification in a public court of opinion, and in Pak­istan, the Ahmadis have suffered under state-led persecution for decades. For a majority of South Asian Muslims, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was an imposter; a false prophet who, they argue, was quite possibly working for the British rulers of India to bring dis­cord to the Muslims of the subcontinent,” he writes. For many of these Muslims, Evans states, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s self-declared prophethood is an “insult to the finality of Muhammed’s prophet­hood”. The Ahmadiyyas, on the other hand, do not ac­cept that their organisation represents a new religion or a breakaway sect. Instead, they claim ownership over the centre of Islamic orthodoxy and believe that they are the continuation of the “one true Islam as it was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran. This is a conflict over nothing less than who might claim the right to Islam,” Evans says.

If you look closer at the in­cidents from Andhra Pradesh, where Sunnis enjoy the pa­tronage of powerful political parties, even the Shias—who are less in population compared with Sunnis—face the threat of appropriation of their property and con­stant meddling in their affairs. How the Sunnis have dominated the Shias across cities and states in India, even those which the latter originally founded, is well-documented knowledge.

For the Ahmadiyyas, though, this is an existential crisis that is likely to have a domino effect across South Asia and perhaps beyond, especially because it is their detractors who enjoy dispro­portionate political support.

As the statement by the Ahmadiyya spokesperson says, “Issu­ing press releases calling for the open boycott of Ahmadi Muslims can cause unrest, spread hatred, and demolish the unity of the Indian people.” The agony of the Ahmadiyya community that Evans identifies in his book—“verification in a public court of opinion”—should have no place in India. Instead, the rule of law must prevail.

Ahmadiyya sectAndhra PradeshIslamMirza Ghulam AhmadpersecutionQadiani