The short version: the answer depends on who is asked, and this page does not give one. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, pray as Muslims and call their faith Islam. Most Muslim scholars hold that their founder’s claims put them outside Islam. In Pakistan, a parliament settled the question in 1974 and a military ruler made it a crime in 1984.[1][2] Political What history can do is set out what Ahmadis believe, why most Muslims reject it, and how an argument among scholars became a matter of law.
Where the movement came from
The Ahmadiyya was born in a particular world: the Punjab under British rule, a generation after the revolt of 1857, when the end of the Mughal dynasty made the question of how Muslims should live under non-Muslim rule urgent (§10).[3] Majority Several Muslim movements answered it at once. The seminary at Deoband, founded in 1866, trained scholars to guide Muslims without a Muslim state; Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s college at Aligarh, founded in 1875, urged Muslims to master modern learning; the Barelwīs defended the veneration of the Prophet and the saints against the reformers.[3][4][5] Consensus Christian missionaries and the Hindu reform movement of the Ārya Samāj were preaching in the same towns, and public debate between religions was fierce.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad came out of that contest. He first made his name as a defender of Islam against the missionaries and the Ārya Samāj, before he made claims of his own. Like the Bāb in Iran a few decades earlier, he spoke to an expectation of a Messiah and a Mahdī that was alive among Muslims in his time; unlike the Bahāʾīs who followed the Bāb, his followers never left the name of Islam.[6][7] Majority
What Ahmadis believe
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) of Qadian in the Punjab first made his name writing polemics against Christian missionaries and the Hindu Ārya Samāj. On 23 March 1889 he took an oath of allegiance from his first followers at Ludhiana, and in 1890–91 he claimed to be the Promised Messiah and the Mahdī whose coming Muslims expected (§10).[6][8] Consensus
Several of his teachings set him apart:
- Jesus died a natural death. Most Muslims hold that Jesus was taken bodily into heaven and will return; Ghulam Ahmad taught that he died, and that the promised return was fulfilled in himself. Majority
- A jihad of the pen. He taught that the jihad of the sword was suspended in his age in favour of argument and preaching. Majority
- Prophethood without a new law. He described himself as a prophet, but of a kind that brings no new law and is subordinate to Muhammad.[6] Consensus
The movement split after his death. In 1914 the Qadian branch, the larger, held that he was a prophet in that sense; the smaller Lahore branch regards him only as a mujaddid, a renewer of the faith of the kind Muslims expect in every century.[8] Consensus
Why most Muslims reject the claim
The decisive verse is Qur’an 33:40, which calls Muhammad “the seal of the prophets” (khātam al-nabiyyīn).[9] Most Muslims understand “seal” to mean the last: after Muhammad there can be no prophet of any kind, with or without a new law. The belief in the finality of prophethood, khatm al-nubuwwa, became for them a test of membership, and a claim to any continuing prophethood a denial of it (§13). Consensus on the disagreement.
Ahmadis answer that a prophet subordinate to Muhammad, bringing no new law, does not break the seal. Yohanan Friedmann’s study traces that interpretation to earlier Sufi ideas of a continuing, non-legislative prophethood.[6] Majority Most Muslim scholars reject it, and regard the claims to be the Messiah and the Mahdī as confirming that the movement stands outside Islam. Political
The Lahore branch is a test case. Its members do not regard the founder as a prophet at all, yet Pakistan’s law names them alongside the Qadian branch.[1][8] Consensus on the text.
Who decided who was a Muslim, before the state?
In the classical tradition the question was argued by scholars and settled, if at all, in their writings; no single body could enforce one answer across the Muslim world (§13). Majority Declaring a professed Muslim an unbeliever, takfīr, was a grave step. The clearest modern statement of the mainstream settlement, the Amman Message of 2004–2005, recognised as Muslims the followers of eight schools of law, Sunni, Shia, Ibāḍī and Ẓāhirī, and forbade declaring any of them apostates; by 2006 it had 552 signatures from 84 countries.[10] Consensus The Ahmadiyya is not among the schools it names.
That is what made the Munir inquiry of 1954 striking. Asked to define a Muslim, the leading scholars who appeared before it could not agree on one definition.[11] Consensus that the report says so. Twenty years later a parliament supplied the definition by law.
How a state decided
In the classical tradition the question “who is a Muslim?” was argued by scholars and settled, if at all, in their writings. The modern answer in Pakistan came from politics (§11).
- 1953. Religious parties, the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī among them, campaigned to have Ahmadis declared non-Muslim and the Ahmadi foreign minister, Sir Muḥammad Ẓafrullāh Khān, dismissed. The campaign turned to riots in Lahore and martial law. The judicial inquiry that followed, the Munir Report of 1954, found that the religious scholars it questioned could not agree on a definition of a Muslim.[11] Consensus that the report says so.
- 1974. On 7 September, the Second Amendment to the constitution declared that for legal purposes anyone who does not believe in the absolute finality of Muhammad’s prophethood is not a Muslim, and named “the Quadiani Group or the Lahori Group (who call themselves Ahmadis or by any other name)”.[1] Consensus on the text.
- 1984. On 26 April, under General Zia-ul-Haq, Ordinance XX added section 298-C to the penal code, punishing with up to three years in prison any Ahmadi who “poses himself as a Muslim, or calls, or refers to, his faith as Islam”, or preaches it.[2] Consensus on the text.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s legislative assembly approved a similar amendment on 6 February 2018. Consensus Ahmadis and human rights organisations describe these laws as persecution; their defenders describe them as protection of a core doctrine against misrepresentation. Political
Common misconceptions
- “Ahmadis do not believe in Muhammad.” They affirm Muhammad as the Prophet and the Qur’an as scripture; the dispute is over whether anyone can be called a prophet after him.[6] Consensus
- “Ahmadis are the same as Bahāʾīs.” The Bahāʾī faith grew out of Iranian Shia messianism in the 1840s–60s and regards itself as a separate world religion; Ahmadis regard themselves as Muslims (§10).[7] Consensus
- “All Ahmadis consider Ghulam Ahmad a prophet.” The Lahore branch does not.[8] Consensus
What history can and cannot settle
History can date the claims, the split, the riots and the laws, and can show that a question once left to scholars was decided by a modern state. It cannot decide what “seal of the prophets” means, or who counts as a Muslim; those are questions each community answers for itself. Political
The full story is in Reform, revival and empire and Islam today.
References
- ^ a b c Constitution (Second Amendment) Act, 1974, Pakistan — Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan. 7 September 1974. English. Defines as non-Muslim, for constitutional and legal purposes, anyone who does not believe in the absolute finality of Muhammad's prophethood, naming the Ahmadi groups. about
- ^ a b Ordinance XX (26 April 1984), Pakistan Penal Code ss. 298-B and 298-C — Anti-Islamic Activities of the Quadiani Group, Lahori Group and Ahmadis (Prohibition and Punishment) Ordinance. 26 April 1984. English. Makes it an offence, punishable by up to three years, for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims or their faith Islam, or to preach it. about
- ^ a b Barbara D. Metcalf Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900. Princeton University Press, 1982. How the Deoband seminary organised reformist learning under British rule.
- ^ Albert Hourani Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939. Oxford University Press, 1962. The classic study of al-Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā and Arab reform.
- ^ Usha Sanyal Devotional Islam and Politics in British India: Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and His Movement, 1870–1920. Oxford University Press, 1996. The Barelwī movement and its defence of devotion to the Prophet and the saints.
- ^ a b c d e Yohanan Friedmann Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Aḥmadī Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background. University of California Press, 1989. Ahmadi doctrine of non-legislative prophethood and its Sufi antecedents.
- ^ a b Abbas Amanat Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844–1850. Cornell University Press, 1989. The Bābī movement as an outgrowth of Shia messianism.
- ^ a b c d Spencer Lavan The Ahmadiyah Movement: A History and Perspective. Manohar, 1974. The movement's history to the 1970s, including the 1914 split.
- ^ Qur'an 33:40 — The Qur'an. 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650. Arabic. Muhammad is 'God's Messenger and the seal of the prophets'; one of the four places the Qur'an names him. read the text
- ^ The Amman Message and its Three Points (November 2004; July 2005) — Amman Message. 2004–2005. Arabic and English. Recognises followers of eight schools of law as Muslims and forbids declaring them apostates; 552 signatures from 84 countries by July 2006. about
- ^ a b Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953 (the Munir Report), 10 April 1954 — Munir Report. 10 April 1954. English. Inquiry into the anti-Ahmadi riots of 1953; finds the religious scholars it questioned unable to agree on a definition of a Muslim. about