Aḥmadiyya
AḤMADIYYA
A sect claiming to be part of Orthodox Islam, although repudiated by both the Sunni and Shī’a branches of islam. The Aḥmadiyya movement was founded by Mīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad (1839–1908) at Qādiyān in the Punjab (India). In 1891 he formally claimed the titles "al-mahdĪ" (the leader who is to return to humanity according to Islamic and, more emphatically, Shī’a doctrine) and "al-Masīḥ" (the Messiah). The main lines of his doctrine, embodied in the Bay’ah, followed Islam more or less closely. However, his personal claims to messiahship were so offensive and so far exceeded the bounds of Islamic orthodoxy that the Aḥmadiyya came to be regarded by Orthodox Muslims generally as simply another syncretistic sect of a type frequently bred in western India. After the death of Mīrzā Ghulām Ahmad's first caliph (Arabic khalīfah, "successor") in 1914, the Aḥmadiyya was split by a schism that separated from the so-called Qādiyāni Aḥhmadiyya repudiating some of the founder's claims and the political activity of the movement. Since then, further schisms have occurred.
Bibliography: h. a. walter, The Ahmadiya Movement (London 1918). m. bashir-al-din, The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam (Chicago n.d.). j. s. trimingham, Islam in West Africa (Oxford 1959) 230–232.
[j. kritzeck/eds.]