The Qadian Diary — Page 2
Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad 2 terror, that history will forever remember the horrors committed on this land as marking one of the darkest chapters of human history. The forced migration of tens of millions of refugees across the subcontinent was in itself a catastrophe without historical parallel. But when one looks back over the dreadful circumstances under which this migration took place, they can only bow their head in shame. Every year the Hindus of India celebrate Holi by spraying each other with red water, but in the last 12 months, millions of people soaked the land of this region with the red of their blood as hundreds of thousands of innocent people were murdered in the mass displacement of the Partition. Thousands of women were abducted and raped, thousands of children were murdered in the presence of their mothers, thousands of mothers were killed in front of their weeping children, and property worth many millions of rupees was looted and burnt to the ground. Amidst all these tragedies, the present account relates specifical- ly to Qadian, the sacred headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which also suffered the same terrible fate as the rest of the country despite its long tradition of peacefulness and loyalty. Almost 450 years ago, our ancestors migrated to this region from Samarqand and Bukhara in the time of the Mughal Emperor Babar, and founded the village of Qadian some 70 miles north-east of Lahore. During the rule of the Mughals our family was held in high esteem. Therefore, when the Mughal Empire declined and the Sikhs seized control of central Punjab, one of their first targets was the estate of Qadian. At the beginning of the 19 th century, our elders were forced to leave Qadian for the first time and made to live as refugees for a time. When Maharaja Ranjit Singh finally fought off rival Sikh confederacies and established his empire over