“Ahmadis are the Muslim equivalent of the Moonies,” noted recently one knowledgeable analyst to this author concerning a community often feted by politicians despite their minuscule global presence, as this series previously discussed. Denounced by the late German scholar of Islam Hiltrud Schröter as a “totalitarian brainwashing cult,” the Ahmadis indeed present many worrisome parallels to other cults, notwithstanding the Ahmadis’ benign public presentation.
Schröter and other German analysts in German-language media have engaged in considerable critical inquiry into the Ahmadis and their behavior in Germany. The German academic Johannes Kandel, long associated with the Social Democratic think tank of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, undertook a 2006 study on behalf of Germany’s main Lutheran church. The “Ahmadiyya present themselves in public as a peaceful, democratic, dialogue- and reform-oriented, as well as socially engaged group,” he noted. In particular, the “Ahmadiyya have become conspicuous in the public through their demonstrative cleaning actions on New Year’s Day (of streets and places dirtied by ‘Christians’ on New Year’s Eve).”
A 2017 study of the Ahmadis for the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche) goes behind such Ahmadi public relations. “The Ahmadiyya organization is strictly hierarchical and authoritarian structured. It thereby does not distinguish itself from other cults [Sekten],” wrote the author, Pastor Andreas Volkmar. Before her death in 2010, Schröter, who wrote a 2002 book on the Ahmadis, concurred that the Ahmadis are “hierarchical, centralized, and undemocratically structured,” analogous to Adolf Hitler’s “Führerprinzip.”
This Ahmadi hierarchy is the Ahmadiyya Khilafat founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom Ahmadi Muslims believe “to be the long awaited Promised Messiah and the Imam Al-Mahdi, whose advent was foretold by” Islam’s prophet Muhammad. In this caliphate, a “Khalifatul Masih (Successor to the Messiah)…is appointed by Allah to continue the work of a Prophet” (i.e. Ahmad) as “God’s man on earth.” Ahmad had “reminded Muslims of God’s promise to safeguard Islam through khilafat (the spiritual institution of successorship to prophethood).” With the death of each Khalifatul Masih, the “Holy Spirit superintends the election process” for a new caliph, as the “Khilafat is not in any way a hereditary institution.”
Empirical evidence analyzed by Schröter and others would suggest otherwise, as the Ahmadiyya Khilafat has been more dynastic than democratic. Following Ahmad’s death in 1908, Maulana Hakeem Nooruddin became Khalifatul Masih I. He was the very first person to swear allegiance to Ahmad in 1889 when he made his proclamation of prophecy in Qadian, India.
Following Nooruddin’s death, Ahmad’s son, Hazrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, the Masleh Maoud or Promised Reformer according to Ahmadi beliefs, became Khalifatul Masih II from 1914 to 1965. Bashiruddin’s son, Hazrat Mirza Nasir Ahmad, was Khalifatul Masih III from 1965 to 1982, whose death allowed for his younger brother, Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, to become Khalifatul Masih IV from 1982 to 2003. The current Khalifatul Masih V, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, is Tahir’s nephew.
Like Nooruddin, all Ahmadis perform a written allegiance oath (Ba’ya) to the Khalifatul Masih. For example, a member of the American Ahmadi youth organization pledges to “always be ready to sacrifice my life, wealth, time and honour for the sake of my faith, country and nation.” A member will make “any sacrifice for guarding the institution of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya.”
Examining such oaths, Kandel observed that an “Ahmadi is accordingly a strict-believing person, for whom his belief should be more worth than ‘life, property, honor, children, and everything dear.’” Volkmar similarly analyzed that Ahmadi’s “obedience ‘until death’ towards the caliph” is an “element that finds itself in totalitarian cults. It clearly secures the leadership elite far-reaching control over the believers.” “Objectionable is what authoritarian role the caliph and the organization play for believers….Absolute obedience is demanded.”
Volkmar accordingly concluded that for Ahmadis a “really critical interaction with one’s own belief contents is so hardly possible.” “Every criticism of the caliph is throttled through a typical sectarian, every objection immunizing argument,” Kandel agreed. Schröter analyzed that Ahmadi Tabligh missionary activities promote a “cult of personality around the founder and his caliphs.” This created an Ahmadi “double strategy of assimilation and good behavior of the followership on the one hand” and “leadership power expansion on the other hand.”
Perhaps the most significant element in Ahmadi leadership power is the obligatory financial contributions Ahmadis must make, claimed by Schröter to be at least one-sixteenth of net monthly income. She also noted additional obligatory contributions or “chandas,” such as through wills and inheritances. Thereby Ahmadi “members receive a purchased religious pseudo-identity as the ‘last people of God,’ a purchased participation in an elite sensibility, and recognition of belonging to a community.”
Schröter described the Ahmadi financial contributions as a “new form of latifundia logic” for a “mafia-like” organization. The “raking in of the followership contributes to the unusual financial power of the leadership elite.” She particularly castigated that Ahmadi “asylum applicants must also pay from their social welfare,” a “taking of state monies under the exploitation of these peoples’ destitution, who hope for help from the Ahmadiyya in the asylum process.”
Such financial strength appears in the media, where Kandel noted that the “Ahmadiyya operate an intensive, qualitatively outstanding publicity” campaign. This includes the global, 24-hour television broadcaster Muslim Television Ahmadiyya International (MTA), established in 1996. Additionally, the Ahmadi “web presence is excellently organized, in 14 languages—from Chinese to Turkish—the Ahmadiyya message can be received.”
Volkmar noted that correspondingly the German Ahmadi community “is extraordinarily present in the media.” By contrast, the German Ahmadi community had a “relatively small size” of an estimated 30,000 members and is not in the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland, ZMD), a national Muslim umbrella organization. “This ongoing medial offensive is a significant factor for the solidarity of the followers, implementation of leadership elite positions, and worldwide mission,” Kandel observed.
Schröter likewise emphasized the Ahmadi “propaganda apparatus, which implements worldwide the most modern methods.” She highlighted the 2003 death at the current Ahmadi global headquarters in London of Tahir Ahmad, Khalifatul Masih IV. MTA made week-long worldwide satellite broadcasts of the rituals surrounding the dead caliph and the installation of his successor.
Ahmadi modern media methods formed for Schröter merely one similarity between the Ahmadi and “modern cults, for example Scientology,” that “maintains in its doctrine to be on par with modern scholarship and rationality.” The Ahmadis reduce religion “to a product to be positioned on the market and to a culture industry.” The Ahmadi faith “follows the general rule of renewal cults: an honorable religious tradition is inherited, it is presented as corrupted, and declared as needing purification.”
Nonetheless, the Ahmadi message is far more primordial than modern, Schröter noted. The Ahmadis’ “favored method” is the “production of fear through threatened punishments.” Ahmadis operate “above all with the means of suggestion” with an “extremely refined” and “consciously planned manner.” Indeed, as forthcoming articles will show, the high-gloss appearance of Ahmadi messaging cannot conceal a much more disturbing substance.
mortimer says
“New-improved” Islam. ‘Real’ Islam! Ahmaddiya! Same religion, half the violence! But we’ve never actually seen what violence the Ahmadis can get up to, because they have never be in power, but I truly suspect, that once in power, the Ahmadis could be as discriminatory and authoritarian as any other Islamic sect. When your law code is supposedly ‘divine’, rather than just the laws of well-meaning, imperfect humans, then HOW CAN ANYONE OBJECT?
To object to Allah’s laws would be blasphemous, wouldn’t it? And punishing those blasphemers would be a divinely-mandated duty, wouldn’t it? Islam is always looking for blasphemers to punish and kafirs to suppress. I doubt Ahmaddiya would be less authoritarian as a political ideology.
Hindu American says
Same religion, half the violence!
Nope. Let history be the judge where today the ahmediyyas are now on the receiving end of the same violence they propagated and historically espoused. Example: Indian Kashmir during 1947-48.
Furqan Force: (From Wikipedia)
The Furqan Force or Furqan Battalion was a uniformed fighting force of volunteers (khuddam-i-din) in newly formed Pakistan, composed of the minority Ahmadiyya branch Muslims. Formed in June 1948 at the direction of Ahmadiyya leader Mirza Mahmood, at the request of Pakistan government, the unit fought for Pakistan against India in the First Kashmir War. In addition to its troops being drawn from the ahmadiyya population, the expenses of maintaining the unit were also paid by that community. The unit was disbanded in 1954 and many of its members became part of Pakistan Army.
In other words, the same ahmediyyas that were in the forefront of demanding and financing a separate nation called pakistan in 1947, created a battalion of “volunteers” to attack Indian Kashmir, raped and pillaged the Kashmiri countryside, and then formed the backbone of the paki army that was responsible for the genocide of Hindus and muslims in Bangladesh in 1970-71, are now declared non-muslims under the pakistani constitution. They are forbidden to take on public roles, regularly hounded by the sunnies and can not secure pakistani passports (where it is required to list your religion).
Yes, the same ahmediyyas!
Karma is a she-dog!
Kerry Wade says
Informative post, good to be well informed and essential for “hacking away at the coalface of ignorance.”
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
Wow. I have learned so much from reading this article and all the comments. Thank-you Andrew Harrod, Mortimer and Hindu American.
gravenimage says
+1
AleX says
The Ahmadi pledge is in fact a rigid, yet transparent statement of insubordination and non-assimilation in the West.
It is meant ‘to always be ready to sacrifice […] life, wealth, time and honour for the sake of faith (*1), country (*2) and nation (*3).
*1: faith (islam)
*2: country (Islamic, tribal origin)
*3: nation (ummah- nation of islam)
Again, nothing is meant to be achieved in ‘dar-al-harb’ or for the ‘kuffar’.
mortimer says
Many thanks to Hiltrud Schröter and the S.E.L.K. for this much-needed study. Western people need a cold shower when it comes to Islam … even if it’s one of the less virulent forms of Islam. Ahmadiyya is still a supremacist, brainwash cult like other Islamic sects.
Ahmadis share about 90% of the same teachings as other Muslims. The 10% difference concerns reincarnation and their peculiar political structure.
terry sullivan says
massive mosque in morden–burnt down by a moslem
Angemon says
Ahmadis – “We are against violent jihad, but we will wage violent jihad as we have in the past”…
tim gallagher says
I have always been puzzled by the idea that there could be any peaceful branch of Islam, because I would have thought all those very clear calls for murderous violence and other evil garbage in the Koran make it obvious to me that islam is a very violent ideology. I couldn’t see how any fringe Muslim could somehow say that all the calls for violence weren’t really calls for violence. Anyway, since the Ahmadis seem to be a tiny little group, they are irrelevant. The neverending terrorist attacks, rape gangs, etc from Muslims make it very clear what Islam is really like. Personally, I only have the time of day for people who pack up and leave Islam. They have made the morally correct decision to leave the evil ideology behind. Islam is rotten and those people who remain part of it are no good. Of course, I can see how some people genuinely can’t leave Islam or they’d soon be dead. I can see how the leftie media would love to give plenty of publicity to some Muslim mob who claim to be peaceful. It fits in with the leftie media, who run a protection racket for Islam, and would love to point to some mob like the Ahmadis, and say, “see, Islam really is peaceful and wonderful”. Yes, and there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.
gravenimage says
And even if they did not whitewash the threat of orthodox Islam, even the Ahmadis want to impose brutal Shari’ah law.
tim gallagher says
Yes, there is so much that is evil in islam that, when I have heard about the Ahmadis and heard about how they are gentle and peaceful, I have often thought of the saying that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. If they follow the vile garbage that is included in islam, then they can’t be good people. And, as you point out, they want Islam to win, which I figure is the aim of all Muslims, and that means imposing barbaric Shari’ah law on all of us.
gravenimage says
The Ahmadis: Islam’s Moonies
……………..
Now *that* is funny! Thanks, Andrew Harrod.
Patriotliz says
Ahmadis: a “totalitarian brainwashing cult.” Really? That’s Islam.
So why do I care about the tortured details, genesis and warped beliefs of this additional cultist offshoot of the cult of Islam? Does it really matter?
Islam by any other name still stinks.
Even the Westernized “reformist” Muslims are stealth jihadists brainwashing us dirty filthy kaffirs into thinking there is some kind of fantasy “benign” version of Islam.
There can never be anything “benign” that comes from the fruit of the poisoned tree of Muhammad, the psychopathic monster, jihadist, rapist, sex slaver and pedophile.
The only good Muslim is an ex-Muslim.
tim gallagher says
I agree with every word you’ve written there, Patriotliz. It’s a very good summary of the situation with Islam.
Hermes says
My dental hygienist is Ahmaddiya. She is a normal person. And I have read a booklet by their founder. In it he preaches against the characteristic jihad of Muslims in India. I have to laugh when I read this website accusations as culthood. Are the twelvers of the Aga Khan cultusts? Are Catholics? Are Hare Krishnas? It all becomes absurd. I am opposed to Islamization of Canada and argue at my local city hall against shariah-compliant ‘women only’ swims. AND against spevial housing for their group in Toronto. But you are going into the looney fringe here Spenser.
gravenimage says
The Ahmadis regularly whitewash Islam. Here are just a couple of examples:
“In Australia, Young Ahmadis Spread Misinformation On ‘Discover Islam’ Road Trip”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/08/in-australia-young-ahmadis-spread-misinformation-on-discover-islam-road-trip
“The Ahmadis: The Establishment’s Favorite Muslims”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/09/the-ahmadis-the-establishments-favorite-muslims
People being led to believe that this is orthodox Islam is actually very dangerous.