“In the West they present themselves as women-friendly and in their own land as misogynist,” observed Sabatina James, an Austrian-Pakistani Muslim convert to Catholicism, about the Ahmadis in a 2013 online video. Her video indicates just how unreformed Ahmadi views about sexuality and gender equality can be for this previously examined small, yet often influential, Muslim sect that has cosmic caliphate visions.
James cited an Arabic internet conversation in which Ahmadis approved Quranic verses calling for whipping adulterers, an example of the Ahmadis’ Islamic orthodoxy concerning sexual matters. Pastor Andreas Volkmar confirmed her views in a 2017 study for Germany’s Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church (Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche). “The Ahmadiyya hardly differ from traditional Islam in what concerns the relationship of the sexes and the role of woman.”
In an earlier 2006 study for Germany’s main Lutheran church, the Social Democratic academic Johannes Kandel burst any illusions that Ahmadis harbored progressive views concerning gender relations:
As also observable by other Muslim organizations, the relationship of women and men is discussed almost exclusively in the categories of a sexual decency discourse. We find with the Ahmadiyya a Manichean moral dualism and downright an obsession with the ‘dangerous’ sexuality of the woman, which is always to be channeled and hemmed in with strict commandments.
Volkmar in 2017 repeated verbatim Kandel’s 2006 assessment that the Ahmadis practiced “on the basis of Koran and Sunna a rigid morality of obedience of the woman towards the man and gender separation.” Therefore Volkmar noted that the “wife owes the husband at all times obedience, including in a sexual respect. If she does not fulfill her duties, there exists in principle the right of chastisement according to Surah 4:34.”
Likewise, Volkmar observed that the “Ahmadiyya community observes strict separation of the sexes and positions itself decidedly against Western society, which is presented as sexually-obsessed and depraved.” Thus the Ahmadis “support removal of teenage girls from swimming, physical, and sex education,” while “veiling counts as an assumed clothing duty.” The late (d. 2010) German scholar of Islam Hiltrud Schröter, author of a 2002 book on the Ahmadis, additionally noted that the Ahmadi community “propagated a special kind of jihad, the ‘jihad against being unveiled.’”
Stern discipline characterizes as well Ahmadi marriage and family life, as Volkmar observed:
The Ahmadiyya community observes strict endogamy: Ahmadis may only marry women from the own community. Marriage with a non-Ahmadi entails exclusion from the community. Marriages are arranged [and “are for Pakistanis an immigration ticket to Germany,” Schröter noted], girls raised from childhood on in the Muslim obedience culture. Polygamy is viewed in principle as possible and sensible.
Additionally, Ahmadi understanding of Muslim sexual mores have had bizarre results. In 2007, a German Ahmadi youth publication caused uproar in Germany with an article’s claims about pork consumption, prohibited by Islamic dietary regulations as non-halal. Supposed causality existed between the pigs’ filthiness and the stimulation of homosexuality in pork eaters.
Such Ahmadi realities belie the positive gloss Ahmadi leaders such as the current Ahmadi “caliph,” Hadrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, attempt to give Islamic doctrine. Speaking at Hamburg, Germany’s Ahmadi Baitur-Rasheed Mosque in 2012, Ahmad noted common Islamic apologetics about how “Islam has given women dignity and honor.” He argued that “Islam gave a woman the right to divorce her husband due to wrong behavior, at a time when women were considered merely a possession or chattel,” without noting how Islamic divorce often allows husbands to exploit wives. He added that “Islam gave women the right to inherit at a time when women were deemed to have no status or worth,” while ignoring that inheritance in received Islamic orthodoxy favors males over females.
Ahmadi morality concerning sex and gender once again reveals stark gaps between the appearances of worldwide Ahmadi public relations and actual Ahmadi practice. Accordingly, public imaginations of Ahmadis as Islam’s avant-garde require critical revision. This is no less true when Ahmadis join other Islamic apologists in retailing common falsehoods about Islamic doctrine and history, as the next article in this series will examine.
Ajay says
Please write an article on Islamic superstitions
Clarino says
Like ‘There is no god but allah..’
or
‘Mo is the perfect man – and definitely not a paedo.’
or
‘Praising the almighty is best done by sticking your arse in the air’
mortimer says
It’s not *misogyny* when AHMADDIS do it.
(The Leftards protect Islam from all criticism … no matter whose rights Muslims crush. It isn’t a human rights violation whenever MUSLIMS do it.)
DHazard says
One can easily see how a family that practices strict Ahmadi Islam would produce adults incapable of forming meaningful, close relationships. Instead they are left starving for the simple everyday kindness we take for granted.
gravenimage says
Grimly, this is true of all observant Muslims, DHazard.
mortimer says
Agree with GI. Ahmaddis are indeed ‘OBSERVANT’ Muslims and they also practice POLYGAMY, so we can expect the Ahmadi version of misogyny to be just about the same as the vanilla SUNNITE misogyny.
Ahmaddis benefit from the fact they NEVER RAN A SOCIETY ANYWHERE and so we they are merely THEORETICAL until they do. Ahmaddis have always lived in some other group’s societies and so they never got to implement their version of Sharia law.
I believe that the Ahmadi version would be about the same as any other type of Sharia law and that an Ahmadi country would be as misogynistic, discriminatory and restrictive as other Muslim countries.
Islam sucks the enjoyment, freedom and fun out of life wherever it goes.
gravenimage says
Yes–the Ahmadi are still pro-Shari’ah.
European pagan says
Lots of ahmadis live here in my city. Headscarf, arranged marriage, lots of children, “I would never go with my wife together to swim there where men and women swim together “…
mortimer says
And polygamy is allowed as well.
RonaldB says
I have no conflict or concern with Ahmaddi practices…as long as they stay in Muslim countries. The oddity is that they have a pile-on to get into Western countries and then play like they’re “reformed” Muslims. In fact, they’re only fringe Muslims.
I think the Ahmaddi provide a cover for European politicians, who don’t want to admit their disastrous actions in admitting masses of hostile, unassimilatable Muslims. So, they trot out the Ahmaddiyas at all opportunities, saying there is nothing wrong with admitting Muslims as such. Europeans are now being criminalized for even criticizing mainstream Islam, so it applies even stronger when their criticisms apply to the “peaceful” Ahmaddiyas. It’s win-win on both sides, politicians and Ahmaddiya, with only the European citizens losing out.
The Ahmadiyyas will need to keep their powder dry, of course, as the mainstream Muslims will see the Ahmaddiyas as an external threat to the ecological niche of the mainstream Muslims…and Muslims have never reacted very gentlemanly towards competition.
mortimer says
Response to RB: When an Islamic sect is in power, it becomes the ‘PARTY OF GOD’ (hezb-Allah). Other rival parties are all heretics that much be suppressed, since only one party can be the actual PARTY OF ALLAH.
That means that one-party dictatorship is the only possible government allowed in a Muslim-majority country and that bloody revolution is the only way to ‘vote’ against the ruling party.
Kepha says
The Ahmadis–I drive past their mosque in my area every now and then noting the friendly adverts for coffee and cake to discuss “real Islam”. However, their compound looks like a wire-enclosed mini-fortress. Then there was dear old Arnold Toynbee hailing them as the religion of the future…
gravenimage says
Only if the future is Islamic.
Carolyne says
In which case there would be no future.
gravenimage says
Grimly true, Carolyne.
tim gallagher says
I have never believed that any good could come from Islam, because of the foulness of the content of the hate-filled Koran (especially its hatred for us non-Muslims) and the revoltingly evil nature of Muhammad, the man they consider to be pretty much a perfect man and their foul version of god, Allah’s, chosen one. So I always distrusted what I heard about the Ahmadis as being nice and peaceful, but I knew hardly anything about them. These articles on the Ahmadis have been very interesting and enlightening. I don’t believe anything good can emanate from Islam. There could, almost miraculously, be an occasional nice Muslim. I have only got the time of day for ex-Muslims, those who see how vile it is and leave the ideology behind. Islam is completely on the wrong track and cannot be redeemed.
Angemon says
Isn’t that the case for all islamic sects? I mean, how many, in the West, are honest about the place of women in islam? “Oh, islam holds women in a very high regard. Jesus’ mother is very well regarded. And muhammad’s first wive was the first convert to islam, as well as a successful business woman.”
James Lincoln says
Test posting