ABSTRACT
In February 2012, Abdul Qudoos, schoolteacher and president of a chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Rabwah, was illegally detained for 46 days, during which police brutally tortured him into confessing to a murder he did not commit. The Ahmadiyya is a minority religious group founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. This chapter explores the historical, social and religious undercurrents of Pakistani state hostility toward the Ahmadiyya. It then explains the conflict between Pakistan's constitutional religious liberty provisions and its history of anti-Ahmadi hostility. The chapter then provides the case law, statutes and legal arguments made against recognition of the group, and concludes with proposed solutions. Founded in 1947, Pakistan was the result of decades of British oppression and religious violence between Hindus and Muslims in India, which together led to a movement by Muhammad Ali Jinnah to create a state that could serve as a safe haven for Muslims while also maintaining religious plurality.
