be more than 10 million members worldwide, but
this figure is disputed. Followers claim that their
numbers are growing.
Ahmadiyya members believe that Ghulam
Ahmad was a religious renewer sent by God
because the religion of Islam was thought to have
gone into decline during the 19th century. Like
other Muslims, they consider the qUran to be
their holy book and have promoted its translation
into many languages. They also practice the Five
pillars of Islam. However, what has made the
movement especially controversial are assertions
made by Ghulam Ahamad and his followers that
other Muslims are unbelievers (kafirs) and that
Ghulam Ahmad is a prophet, a promised redeemer
(mahdi), a Christlike messiah, and an incarnation
of the Hindu god Krishna. Some Christians and
Hindus, along with many Muslims, have objected
to these beliefs, and the movement was attacked
and persecuted by other Islamic groups and con-
servative religious authorities in India and later
in pakistan. As a consequence, the Ahmadiyya
experienced internal division into the Qadiani and
Lahori branches in 1914.
The larger Qadiani branch of the Ahmadiyya
believes that it represents the only true Islam. It
emphasizes belief in the prophethood of Ghulam
Ahmad and the aUthority of his successors, who
carry the title of caliph. After the 1947 partition
and independence of India and Pakistan, it moved
its headquarters to Rabwa, Pakistan. The fourth
caliph, Mirza Tahir Ahmad (d. 2003), moved the
Ahmadiyya headquarters to London in the 1980s
because of heightened opposition faced in Paki-
stan. The present caliph is his son Mirza Masroor
Ahmad (b. 1950), the great grandson of Ghulam
Ahmad. The Lahori branch is more moderate in
its outlook, affirming Ghulam Ahmad’s role as a
renewer, but it no longer regards him as a prophet.
It also identifies with the wider Muslim commu-
nity more readily than does the Qadiani branch.
Public riots and opposition by Sunni Muslim
groups led to an amendment to the Pakistani
constitution that declared Ahmadiyya members to
be non-Muslims in 1974, followed by an official
government ban on group activities in 1984. The
name Ahmadiyya has also been used by several
Sufi groups, especially that of the Egyptian saint
ahmad al-badaWi (ca. 1200–76).
See also christianity and islam; hindUism
and islam; prophets and prophecy; reneWal and
reForm movements.Further reading: Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Con-
tinuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its
Medieval Background (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1989); Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, Ahmadiyyat:
The Renaissance of Islam (London: Tabshir Publications,
1978).Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid (1817–1898)
Indian Muslim religious reformer, political figure, and
educator
Sayyid Ahmad Khan was among the first to call
for the reform of Islam in order to make it more
compatible with modern Western thinking, the
results of which gave Muslims more of a voice
in public life under British rule. When the Brit-
ish put down the Muslim-Hindu uprising against
them in 1857 and abolished the mUghal dynasty,
Ahmad Khan felt that the only way for Muslims to
recover their influential role in india was to mod-
ernize their religion and cooperate with British
authorities. While many credit him with inspiring
the Muslim nationalist movement that led to the
creation of pakistan in 1947, others see him more
as a modernizer and educator who valued the idea
of Hindu and Muslim cooperation with the British
in governing India.
Ahmad Khan was born to a family claiming
to be descendants of Muhammad, but of Persian
heritage, in delhi, India. He received a limited
formal education in Urdu and Persian in prepara-
tion for government service as other members of
his family had done for generations. After holding
a string of appointments as a minor judge in a
number of north Indian towns during his 20s, heK 24 Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid