“Every departure from orthodoxy is not apostasy, although witch hunt is not the monopoly of any particular religion,” the late V. R. Krishna Iyer (Indian judge & minister who reformed the Indian criminal justice system).

Source: indianexpress.com | southasiamonitor.org

The White Minaret with the Ahmadiyya Flag in Qadian, India. (Source: Wikimedia [in public domain])

The issue before the learned judge, then on the Kerala High Court bench, was if adopting the Ahmadiyya faith by a Muslim would amount to apostasy. His verdict, in the Shihabuddin Koya case of 1971, was:

“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.” Before Independence, the high courts of Patna and Madras had delivered similar verdicts. The recognition of the Ahmadiyya community as a sect of Islam in the census report of 2011 conforms with this legal position.

According to the holy Quran, after the creation of the world, god sent numerous divine messengers, generally called the prophets, for guiding humankind. There has always been a broad consensus in the international Muslim community that Prophet Muhammad was “Khatam-un-Nabiyin” (seal of the prophets) after whom god did not send any other prophet.

Official website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community: http://alislam.orghttp://alislam.org

The Ahmadiyya community regards its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian in Punjab, as a prophet and, for that reason, mainstream Muslims do not recognise them as a part of their community. But the fundamental declaration of faith in Islam — there is none to be worshiped but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet — does not expressly say that Muhammad was the “last” prophet.

Lawyers and judges use this declaration to categorise Ahmadiyyas as a sect of Islam. They also cite the community’s religious literature that describes Ghulam Ahmad as a “sub-prophet”, who carried Prophet Muhammad’s mission forward.

While delivering the verdict in the Kerala High Court, Iyer, had exclaimed that, “It should… be startling if one of the most distinguished representatives of a country which has adopted Islam as the state religion should himself be deemed an apostate.” The country he alluded to was Pakistan and the “distinguished representative” he referred to was Barrister Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, who put forth the claims of Ahmadis to be recognised as Muslims in the cases in the Patna and Madras high courts.

Zafrullah Khan was born in undivided Punjab in 1893 in a family professing the Ahmadiyya faith.

He participated in the round table conferences in London between 1930 and 1932, served as a member of the Central Legislative Assembly and went on to become a judge of the Federal Court.

After creating Pakistan on religious grounds, Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared, in the newly created nation’s constituent assembly, that Pakistan would be a secular nation. He drew Zafrullah Khan to his side of the torn subcontinent in the hope that he would be his right hand man in developing Pakistan as a modern country. During one deliberation in the Pakistan constituent assembly, Zafrullah Khan remarked, “It is a matter of great sorrow that… continue reading at indianexpress.com