BySrinivasa Rao ApparasuJul 23, 2023 01:42 AM IST
In a letter to AP’s chief secretary K S Jawahar Reddy, the Union ministry of minority affairs said the resolution of the waqf board amounted to hate campaign.
The Central government on Friday asked the Andhra Pradesh government to look into the complaint made by Ahmadiyya sect of the Muslims against the state waqf board, which recently passed a fresh resolution declaring Ahmadiyya members as “kafirs” (non-believers) and “non-Muslims,” people familiar with the matter said.
In a letter written to Andhra Pradesh chief secretary K S Jawahar Reddy, the Union ministry of minority affairs said the resolution of the waqf board amounted to hate campaign, which could have ramifications across the country.
The Union ministry was acting on a representation made by the Ahmadiyya Muslim community on Thursday, in which it referred to the resolution passed by the Andhra Pradesh waqf board, declaring the community to be outside the fold of Islam.
“This constitutes a hate campaign against the Ahmadiyya community at large and the Waqf Board neither has the jurisdiction nor authority to determine religious identity of any community including Ahmadiyyas,” the letter added.
When contacted, president of Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh state waqf board Hameedullah Hasan refused to comment on the representation given to the central government, saying he was not aware of it.
However, its former president Mohammed Sohail said the representation might have been made by their Delhi unit. “In fact, this resolution is not new. In 2012 itself, the then combined Andhra Pradesh State Waqf Board passed it declaring the Ahmadiyya community as non-Muslim. This resolution was challenged in the Andhra Pradesh high court which issued an order for interim suspension of the resolution,” he said.
The union ministry said despite the high court orders, the present Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board issued another proclamation in February this year declaring the Ahmadiyya sect as non-Muslim.Andhra Pradesh state waqf board chairman V Khader Basha did not respond to the calls to seek clarifications on the fresh resolution. Waqf board chief executive officer L Abdul Khadir also did not take calls, saying he was busy in a meeting.
According to Mir Ayub Ali Khan, a prominent Muslim scholar of Hyderabad, Ahmadiyya is an ‘Islamic’ religious revivalist movement founded near the end of the 19th century, originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad at Qadian in Punjab.“Muslims across the world regard Ahmadiyyas, who are also called as Qadiyanis, as non-Muslims, because they do not believe in the basic tenet of Islam that Prophet Mohammad was the last prophet and there would be no more prophets,” he said.
On February 18, 2012, the then combined Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board passed a resolution asking the Qazis (Islamic priests) of the state not to perform Nikaah (marriage) of those belonging to Ahmadiyya community because they are “not Muslims.”Besides the matrimonial boycott of Ahmadiyya community, the state waqf board has also suspended religious properties belonging to the community from its list of waqf properties. It asked the state government to take control of religious properties belonging to Qadayanis under its direct management.|
Categories: Ahmadis, Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, India, Indian Media, Indian Press