In the land they helped build, Ahmadis cannot call themselves Muslims – Firstpost

Pakistan is a nation buried under paradoxes and betrayals. And few betrayals cut deeper, or shame Pakistanis more, than the one inflicted on the Ahmadiyya community. The very people who stood at the frontlines of the Pakistan movement, who articulated its case to the world, and who helped structure its legal birth are today branded as heretics, criminals, and enemies of the state.

In the land Ahmadis helped build, they cannot call themselves Muslims. The state they helped create, they are not free there. And in the land they dreamed of as a sanctuary, they live under the constant threat of death.

It begins with a signature. A young Pakistani, applying for a passport, is presented with a declaration. A simple question: Are you a Muslim? And if yes, he must then affirm that he disowns the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, believe their founder was an impostor, and confirm that Ahmadis are non-Muslims. He must lie or betray. There is no middle ground.

Even faith, in Pakistan, is a loyalty test to state-manufactured theology. To be an Ahmadi in Pakistan today is to live under siege—not by war, but by law. Ordinance XX, passed in 1984, criminalised their existence. They can no longer say the Kalima, offer prayers, call their mosques “mosques”, or even greet someone with Assalamu Alaikum. They are barred from celebrating Eid publicly, from sacrificing animals, from publishing religious texts, or identifying as Muslims on legal documents. These are not isolated policies; they are systemic exclusions, written into the Constitution and enforced through law, police, mobs, and sometimes, bullets.

A Nation Built by Them Now Bans Them

This wasn’t always so. The Ahmadiyya community were not only part of the Pakistan movement—they were its intellectual engine. Sir Zafarullah Khan, a devout Ahmadi, was Pakistan’s first foreign minister and one of the sharpest legal minds of his era. He argued the case for Pakistan before international courts and served as President of the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice. His devotion to Pakistan was never in doubt. But today, his name is missing from textbooks. His face is hidden from public memory. His tombstone was desecrated by authorities because it dared mention he was a “Muslim”.

A man who helped build the identity of the nation was stripped of his own. This erasure is not metaphorical—it is physical. Ahmadi graves are dug up and their tombstones vandalised. Their houses of worship are attacked, sealed, and demolished. In several cities, including Lahore, Faisalabad, and Sargodha, police have stopped Ahmadis from offering Eid prayers or sacrificing animals, citing religious “sensitivities”.

Sensitivities so brittle they cannot bear to see someone pray differently. And when they are not being policed, they are being hunted. Over the past two decades, Ahmadi men, women, and children have been killed in their homes, their businesses, and their places of worship. In 2010, twin attacks on Ahmadi mosques in Lahore killed over 80 worshippers in one day. The perpetrators were hailed as martyrs by extremist groups. Not a single national leader showed up to mourn the dead.

More recently, targeted killings have continued unabated. In just one month, May 2025, several Ahmadis were shot dead in separate incidents across Punjab and Sindh. Their only crime: existing while Ahmadi. And each time, the public reaction becomes more muted. Another name. Another headline. Then nothing. The horror now lies not just in the violence—but in its normalisation. In the way the country shrugs and scrolls past. In how media coverage is couched with “alleged” blasphemy or “community tensions”, as if this were a dispute over noise, not blood. But let us not confuse the silence for peace. It is not peace. It is paralysis. It is a society rotting in its soul, one atrocity at a time.

Where Does Hatred End, If It Ever Ends?

The persecution of Ahmadis is not just a tragedy for them—it is a mirror held up to the nation. And what it reflects is terrifying because this hatred does not stop. It moves. From Ahmadis to Shias. From Christians to Hindus. From liberals to journalists. From women to human rights defenders. The same logic that declares Ahmadis as infidels now turns on Shia processions, Shia prayer leaders, and anyone who dares differ from the rigid orthodoxy of state-approved Islam. This is not an accident. It is a trajectory.

When a state empowers religious bigotry, when it legislates against difference, when it builds identity on exclusion—it creates a society that is permanently at war with itself. It cannot breathe. It cannot dream. It cannot grow. It is trapped in a perpetual witch-hunt, always chasing the next heretic. In schools, children are taught to hate. In sermons, preachers call for violence. In courts, judges bow to mob pressure. And in Parliament, lawmakers sign away the rights of their fellow citizens in the name of faith. We must ask: where does this end? What future does Pakistan have if it continues to punish difference, if it continues to erase pluralism, if it continues to exalt one interpretation of faith as the only legitimate one? Do we really believe that God, in His vastness, is so small as to be offended by someone else’s prayer? Do we really think that the path to salvation is paved with the blood of others? If Ahmadis are ‘wrong’, should we kill them? If Shias are ‘misguided’, should we silence them? If Christians are ‘infidels’, should we burn their homes?

These questions are not rhetorical. They are real. Because right now, the answers playing out in Pakistan are: yes. Yes, kill them. Yes, silence them. Yes, burn their homes. And anyone who thinks differently is next. This is the logic of fascism. And Pakistan is inching toward it, day by bloody day. Yet there are those who still resist. Ahmadi leaders in exile continue to preach peace. Their followers continue to work quietly in education, medicine, and social service. Many Pakistanis—Shia and Sunni, secular and religious—speak out in defence of Ahmadis, often at great personal risk. These are the flickers of hope. The quiet flames that refuse to die. But they cannot carry the burden alone. It is not enough for a few to whisper when the nation shouts hate. It is not enough for the world to tweet condolences after massacres. There must be a reckoning.

Pakistan must remember that a country cannot be purified into unity. It must be expanded into tolerance. And so the challenge is this: can Pakistanis accept difference? Can they live beside people whose beliefs diverge from our own? Can they build a country not on fear but on freedom? If the answer is no—if Ahmadis must be crushed for faith, Shias questioned for loyalty, and Christians punished for existing—then we must admit Pakistan is not a nation. Pakistan is an inquisition. But if the answer is yes—if Pakistanis can make space for each other, if they can disagree without destruction, if they can attest to the ideals of justice and dignity—then perhaps there is still a future worth dreaming of.

Until that answer is chosen, every sacrifice is meaningless. Every Eid is hollow. Every prayer is an echo bouncing off broken walls and shuttered mosques. And every child born into Pakistan is not a citizen—but a suspect in his/her own nation. The question lingers, louder each year: If those who built the house are no longer welcome in it, what kind of house have they made?

Tehmeena Rizvi is a Policy Analyst and PhD scholar at Bennett University. Her areas of work include Women, Peace, and Security (South Asia), focusing on the intersection of gender, conflict, and religion, with a research emphasis on the Kashmir region, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.