Declaration of Ahmadis as “non-Muslim” in the Constitution of Pakistan

In August and September 1974, the Pakistan National Assembly (the legislature of the country) held proceedings as a special committee of the whole house and approved an amendment to the Constitution to the effect that any follower of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is a non-Muslim. The hearings were held in camera (i.e., without public reporting) and the record of the proceedings was declared a classified secret, not to be released to the public for a period of 25 years.

In 2010 Bashir A. Khan, a barrister and solicitor in Canada, petitioned the Lahore High Court for the National Assembly to release the record of the proceedings. Following this petition, the National Assembly Secretariat obtained approval from the Speaker of the Assembly on 21 June 2010 “for the declassification of the record and distribution of its copies on demand”. The National Assembly then published the Official Report of the Proceedings through the National Book Foundation, Islamabad, printed by the Printing Corporation of Pakistan Press.

After obtaining his copy, Bashir A. Khan made it available in pdf format, and prepended to it the order he obtained from the Lahore High Court and the response of the National Assembly Secretariat.

It is clear from reading this record that the proceedings were not fair and impartial hearings, nor an objective assessment of whether Ahmadis are Muslims, but an opportunity for anti-Ahmadiyya members to vent their hostility and hatred against Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was determined to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslim, despite his party, the Pakistan People’s Party, being a non-religious, socialist party. The opposition, being Islamic religious parties, had always had the same objective. The Attorney-General of the government, Yahya Bakhtiar, whose role was to assess the evidence, sided with the anti-Ahmadiyya members in his execution of the case in the National Assembly.

It is, therefore, quite understandable from this record why the government of the time banned its publication for 25 years. In fact, they were only released it after 36 years, and that too under pressure of the petition in the Lahore High Court. Not only does it show the proceedings to be a complete travesty of justice and legal norms, but also the weakness of the joint government-opposition case. There are several examples of statements by members which are not only factually erroneous but plainly absurd and can be held up to ridicule.

Here we provide a small sample of their errors and absurdities:

1. Attorney-General quotes from Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in wrong time order of publication and demolishes his own case.
2. Speaker disallows discussion on the fact that the opposition Islamic parties regard the ruling People’s Party as kafir.
3. A member says our Ulama hold the same rank as the prophets of the Bani Isra’il.