Emerging in British India in the late 19th century, the Ahmadis are now discriminated against in many Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan, where half of them live. Their plight has alarmed UN experts, who denounce the resurgence of violence against them.

By Vinciane Joly

July 29th, 2024 at 06:00 am (Europe\Rome).

Independent UN experts have denounced the increase in discrimination and violence in Pakistan against the Ahmadi community, a branch of Islam not recognized in the country. They are calling for their protection.

In a July 25 statement, the nine experts appointed by the Human Rights Council highlighted various incidents over the past few months, “including the extrajudicial killings” of two Ahmadis on July 8 and the president of the Bahawalpur Ahmadi community on March 4.

They also noted an alarming number of attacks against Ahmadi places of worship and cemeteries reported since the beginning of the year, aimed at “preventing or hindering their participation in religious practices.” Some of these attacks have resulted in serious injuries to worshipers.

Restoring Islam

Ahmadiyya, or Ahmadism, was born in India at the end of the 19th century. Its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835 – 1908), born in Qadian, Punjab, northeast of Amritsar, proclaimed that Allah had entrusted him with restoring Islam. He declared himself mujaddid (renovator/reformer) and muhaddith (one who revives tradition) of the Muslim religion. His followers see him as the mahdi or the messiah awaited at the end of times.

While considering themselves Muslims, the Ahmadis give a special place to Jesus and the saints. They develop a particular Christology, asserting that Jesus was taken down from the cross in a coma (not dead) and continued his preaching, traveling as far as east of the Euphrates.

Further reading: Pakistan province fights prejudice against religious minorities

A few years after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death, the movement split into two branches: the “Qadiani” branch, which venerates him as a prophet, and the Lahore branch, which regards him as a renovator.

In 1947, after the independence and partition of British India into India and Pakistan, many Ahmadis from what is now India moved to the newly created Pakistan, where they now number several million. In the latter half of the 20th century, they spread to Algeria, Europe, Canada, and the United States.

Heresy

These beliefs in a prophet after Muhammad have led orthodox Sunni Muslims to consider Ahmadiyya as heresy. In 1973, Ahmadiyya was declared a sect not related to Islam by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which banned its adherents from making the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Pakistan followed suit, amending its Constitution in 1974 to designate Ahmadis as non-Muslims. In 1984, a new law prohibited them from identifying as Muslims, broadcasting the call to prayer, and naming their places of worship as “mosques.”

Further reading: For minority Ahmadis, Ramadan means love despite persecution

Since then, at least 4,000 Ahmadis have faced criminal proceedings due to their faith, with several hundred charged with blasphemy, according to the community. In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, blasphemy charges can result in the death penalty, although it has never been applied in these cases. However, on May 28, 2010, attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore resulted in approximately 80 deaths and 80 injuries.

There are ten million Ahmadis worldwide. In Algeria, where there are about 2,000 followers, 27 were sentenced in 2018 to three to six months in prison with suspended sentences, primarily for “offending Islam.”

(With additional reporting from AFP)

source https://international.la-croix.com/religion/who-are-the-ahmadis-the-muslims-the-un-calls-to-protect