Pakistani Nationalism and the State Marginalisation of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan

By Sadia Saeed

Volume 7, Issue 3, pages 132-152

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between nationalism, state formation, and the marginalisation of national minorities through an historical focus on Pakistani state’s relationship with the Ahmadiyya community, a self‐defined minority sect of Islam. In 1974, a constitutional amendment was enacted that effectively rendered the Ahmadiyya community a non‐Muslim minority, in spite of claims by the community that it was Muslim and hence not a minority. This paper attempts to account for this anti‐Ahmadiyya state legislation by arguing that the genealogy of the idea of a Pakistani state is key for understanding the politics of exclusion of the Ahmadiyya community from ‘Muslim citizenship’ ‐ that is, who is and isn’t a Muslim.

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