The Riots of 1953 — Page xiv
vi A minor victory was struck as early as 1949 when the Objectives Resolution—a preamble to Pakistan’s first constitution—admitted certain religious concessions. Running concurrently with the issue of Islam was the notorious Ahmadi question. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was founded in British India by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as who lived between 1835 and 1908 in the town of Qadian, Punjab. Ahmad as claimed to be the Promised Messiah and Mahdi long awaited by the Muslim world, and in this capacity a prophet of God. He also declared that Jesus as had died a natural death and was not raised alive to heaven, while forbidding Jihad against the British on the grounds that they afforded full religious freedom to all their citizens within India. His message met with widespread scorn from orthodox Muslims and he was swiftly declared an apostate and an agent of the Raj. Even predating Pakistan, members of the community were routinely harassed, boycotted, and at times murdered for their perceived heresy. In the newly formed Pakistan, Islamic clerics saw a perfect opportunity to decide on the religious status of Ahmadis once and for all. The first calls to have Ahmadis declared non-Muslim came from the Majlis-e-Ahrar when the Objectives Resolution was being framed. However, lawmakers showed no appetite to acquiesce to their demands and little headway was made. The Ahrar, however, were not deterred and would soon have the opportunity to raise the Ahmadi question again. On 21 January 1953, the Ahrar this time with the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami and other ulema through the recently convened All Pakistan Muslim Parties Convention issued an ultimatum to Khawaja Nazimuddin, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, to declare Ahmadis a non-Muslim minority and to remove Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan as the foreign minister