Invitation to Ahmadiyyat — Page ix
Foreword to the Present Edition Since its inception, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has been targeted by a barrage of misinformation campaigns. Today, we find websites, articles and social media posts littering the internet in an attempt to convince Muslims as well as non-Muslims that Ahmadi beliefs deviate from Islam. This is nothing new, for such slur and slander was hurled upon every Prophet and his commu - nity of followers. False reports regarding the Community were fabricated as early as the late 1800s, festering into the first martyrdoms of Ahmadi Muslims at the hands of the then Afghan King, Habibullah Khan (1872 to 1919). In the early 1920s, misinformation again influ - enced the court of the Amir of Afghanistan, Amanullah Khan (1892 to 1960), who subsequently ordered the stoning to death of three Ahmadi Muslims for their faith in 1924. Upon learning of this brutal act, the second Khalifah of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Hadrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Deen Mahmood Ahmad ra , penned Da‘watul-Am i r ( ) as a treatise addressed to the Amir of Afghanistan to eradicate any miscon - ceptions regarding the beliefs of the Community. He articulated the Islamic foundation and legitimacy of the Ahmadiyya beliefs,