A New Round of the Qadiani Issue

Hon'ble Chief Justice has reserved judgment on the case about Qadianis in the Supreme Court. A respected judge of the Lahore High Court has reviewed a case and deleted his remarks due to public protest after writing the Qadianis as a sect of Muslims in a decision of the case. And now the country's well-known journalist and intellectual Mr. Mujibur Rahman Shami has raised the question of the alleged civil rights of the Qadianis in a broadcast and has asked Maulana Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and Maulana Mufti Muneebur Rahman to take a mutual stance in this regard.

The continuation of these events indicates that the Qadiani issue is once again being brought to discussion at the national level and a new round has begun. On which the parties working on the mission of protecting the Islamic belief of “finality of prophethood” will have to pay serious attention and offer a common position (for which) a plan of action will have to be re-determined.

The continuation of the Qadiani issue until now is that due to the acceptance of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani as the Prophet of God and his teachings as the revelation of God, the Qadianis were unanimously declared non-Muslims by all the religious leaders of the Muslim Ummah. While the elected Parliament of Pakistan, through a unanimous decision of 1974, instead of recognizing the Qadianis as a part of the Muslim Ummah, declared them as a non-Muslim minority like other non-Muslim populations of the country, which Qadianis have not been accepting, and their position is that they are Muslims, while all those who do not recognize Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani as a Muslim are non-Muslims. After being constitutionally declared a non-Muslim minority, when the Qadianis flatly refused to recognize this decision and continued to present themselves as Muslims and continued their activities in the name of Islam, the “Imtina-e-Qadiyaniyyat Act” (the Anti-Islamic Activities of the Quadiani Group) was introduced to bind them to the constitutional provisions, but they did not recognize it either.

The current situation is that all the religious schools of thought and the public are demanding the government of Pakistan take steps to make the Qadianis bound by the constitutional decision and the law prohibiting Qadianiism (presenting as Islam). While the Qadianis have become a front against these decisions in human rights organizations at the global level, they have heated the propaganda and have been lobbying against Pakistan, the country's religious circles, and constitutional and legal decisions. As a result, international organizations and circles are constantly urging Pakistan to review the decisions of the constitution and laws that set the status of Qadianis as a non-Muslim minority, and that they should be given the status that they demand in the name of Islam presenting themselves as Muslims.

In this background, this new debate on the national level on the Qadiani issue needs to be addressed with deep seriousness and it is the responsibility of the religious circles to address the confusion that has been created in the understanding of the Qadiani issue over time, and organize joint deliberations to deal with the new pressure situation that is emerging from the international community. With new preparations, work towards saving the gains of the country’s religious struggles for the position of the Muslim Ummah on this most important religious and national issue. 

In our view, three things are particularly noteworthy in this regard:

One is that we still have no arrangement to reach the international organizations and players that have been used as the front of the campaign against the Muslim Ummah and Pakistan in this issue. We have not yet been able to make any arrangements to present our position there and bring out the Qadiani deception, which was a very necessary task. We are suffering the consequences of not paying serious attention to it in the form of the present situation.

The second reason is that there is no common forum for discussion on this issue at the national level as it was during the movements of Khatam-e-Nabuwat in 1953, 1974, and 1984.

The third reason is that in the previous movements, along with the religious circles, there was an atmosphere of leadership and high-level representation of the business community, lawyers, teachers, students, journalists, and other classes, which is not visible now. 

It will be sufficient to refer to an incident related to the situation of not having access to the international community. When the Qadiani issue was discussed in the Supreme Court of South Africa, the government of Pakistan and the religious leaders of the country played a practical role in it, which brought us success there. While this is continuously being discussed in the United Nations, European Union, Human Rights Commission, and other international organizations, we do not have any representation and activities in these places, the consequences of which are gradually coming to light.

In this context, we request all the religious leaders of the country to realize the pace and direction of the wind promptly and organize the re-alignment of the Movement of  “Khatm-e-Nabuwat” (finalty of prophethood), so that we can save the results and achievements of the struggle done so far from being sabotaged, and also play an effective role to make the current struggle fruitful.

(An AI-assisted translation of an article published in the July 2024 issue of the monthly Nusratul-Uloom, Gujranwala)