Source: The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4132236.ece
On the day that Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad was made caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslims he was terrified. “That day made me very embarrassed,” he says, recalling the moment five years ago when the sect elected him Khalifa, leader of the worldwide community. Trained as an agricultural economist in his native Pakistan, and only 53 at the time, he admits that his nerves showed. “When you see the video, you will see me crying . . . If you realise the importance of your work, and your obligations, and that you’re going to be answerable to one God . . . that makes you so scared it’s unbelievable.”
Allah gave him strength, he says. By the next morning the fear had subsided and he set to work from his London base, leading the estimated 70 million Ahmadiyya Muslims in more than 180 countries. The challenge was huge, not least because the sect, which celebrates the centenary of its founder’s death this year, is controversial.
Founded in 1889 by an Indian Muslim, Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Ahmadiyya movement believes its founder to be the Messiah awaited not only by Muslims, but by Christians, Jews and other faiths. Jesus survived the Crucifixion, Ahmadis believe, eventually dying in Kashmir. For many mainstream Muslims, Ahmadiyya belief contravenes the Prophet Muhammad’s status as the final prophet. Some go so far as to call them non-Muslims.
With controversy has come persecution. In Pakistan, Ahmadis are legally a non-Muslim minority, which means blasphemy laws ban them from engaging in Muslim practices, from using mosques and attending Haj to using the Muslim greeting “Salaam”.