Persecution of Ahmadis Persecution of Ahmadis The Ahmadiyya sect of Islam has been subject to various forms of religious persecution and discrimination since the movement's inception in 1889. The Ahmadiyya Muslim movement emerged from the Sunni tradition of Islam and its adherents believe in all the five pillars and articles of faith required of Muslims. Ahmadis are considered non-Muslims by many mainstream Muslims since they consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the movement, to be the promised Mahdi and Messiah awaited by the Muslims. The Ahmadis are active translators of the Qur'an and proselytizers for the faith. However, in a number of
Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement for the Propagation of Islam (those who depart from the right path) in distinction to disbelief in a basic element of the faith which would have excluded them from the Muslim community ("Ummah"). Muhammad Ali repudiated the idea of declaring the entire Muslim community as disbelievers, a term which, according to him, could not apply to non-Ahmadi Muslims indiscriminately, something which he accused Mahmud Ahmad of doing. Affirming a different typology of disbelief, i.e. that which subsists outside of Islam in contrast to that which does not entail exclusion from it, although Mahmud Ahmad held that Muslims who did not accept Ghulam Ahmad technically fell