The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Assessment of Prof. Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi by Lady Judge in Cape Town

Professor Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi (d. 2010) of the International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan, appeared for the defence in a court case in Cape Town in 1987. The case was brought by a Sunni Imam, Sheikh Jassiem, against the Sunni Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) and its President and involved a discussion of the point whether Jassiem was right in treating Lahore Ahmadis as Muslims after they had been declared kafir and apostate by the MJC.

Professor Ghazi, who later became Rector of International Islamic University, Islamabad, a judge in the Federal Shariah Court, and later still the Minister of Religious Affairs in Pakistan, testified to prove that Lahore Ahmadis are non-Muslim.

In her judgment of February 1990, the lady Judge Van Den Heever, assessed Ghazi’s testimony as follows:

“He has been involved with various Pakistan government bodies…  As a witness Professor Ghazi has the disadvantage that he correctly concedes that where the government of the day supports an idea that idea flourishes. The Pakistan government having legislatively declared Pakistan Mirzais to be a non-Muslim minority, he himself would have problems on his return home were he to thump any but an anti-Ahmadi tub. That tub he thumped with great vigour, displaying his total bias against Mirza [Ghulam Ahmad]. He concedes that he has the “strongest possible” anti-Ahmedi feelings — a concession it was unnecessary to extract from him since he seldom missed an opportunity of running Mirza down. He was not prepared to give Mirza the benefit of any doubt whatever, to regard him as perhaps bona fide but misguided, but likened him to a “criminal” whose “justification” should not be taken as face value. Of possible interpretations put on Mirza’s words and actions, he always chose the worst. …

… his evidence was often illogical, inferences unjustified. Indeed, he appears to be more interested in the political than the spiritual aspect of Islam…

Advocate de Villiers’s comment to Ghazi “you do seem to make up rules as you go along” or words to that effect, was not without foundation. Ghazi has dual standards for apos­tacy and almost everything else, one for Mirza and one for others.” (pp. 93–95).