Travel, 6 August (continued)

Traveling on, we stopped in Qadian – the place of judges. A walled city, this is the center of the Ahmadiyya movement.

Founded in 1889 by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulan Ahmad (1835-1908), the Ahmadis have been an influential group here for many years. Despite this, they are a persecuted group within the larger fold of Islam and are often considered a separate religion.

Most recently, there have been serious troubles in Indonesia. The persecution is due to founder’s claim that he was The Promised Messiah, the final prophet of God given a mandate to renew Islam. As well, the name Ahmadiyya was given to the movement because Ahmad was one of the two names of the Prophet Muhammad. Two figures in Punjab have claimed to be the Messiah, Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi being the other.




Since the founder, there have been five successors – active in a variety of ways. The nineteenth century saw a challenge to the actions of the Christian missionaries in the region. One of the recent leaders was active in horticulture, attempting to breed a black rose.

Prominent Ahmadis include Dr. Abdus Salam, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979, and Yusef Lateef, a jazz musician and grammy award winner. The community is active worldwide and their large mosques quite visible – such as the largest mosque when coming out of Washington D.C.