The Othering of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

What is it about?

The controversies and debates around Ahmadiyya movement over the period of time has entered into the public consciousness particularly among Muslims of South Asia, which has enabled it to become an accepted feature of the contemporary South Asian Politics. As the movement became more public, the distinct identity of Ahmadi took shape and a notion of Ahmadiyyat as distinct expression of Islam became increasingly politicized. The emergence of this Ahmadi identity was influenced by modern South Asian politics as much as South Asian Islam was influenced by the modernists. This influence has widen the dichotomy between Ahmadi Islam and the orthodox Islam. The present study will focus on how the narratives within South Asian Islam were evolved and developed to construct and declare the Ahmadis as a non-Muslim minority. It will also highlight how these narratives over the period of time were used by both the Muslim groups and the prominent Muslims to demonize and make the Ahmadiyya community as ‘others’ in the eyes of Muslims and state structures. The study will largely focus on the narratives of Muslim intellectuals of the 20th century like Muhammad Iqbal and Maulana Maududi and other groups like Majlis-i-Ahrar and their role in building and constructing narratives which mad the Ahmadis as ‘others’ and simultaneously changed their identity and their status as being Muslims.

Featured Image