While the legal saga of Mubarak Ahmed Sani remains subject to conflicting interpretations, what is clear is that Sunni authorities want the repression to continue.
The battle about the Mubarak Ahmed Sani case and the decision issued last February by the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court is difficult to understand for non-Pakistanis, primarily because Pakistanis themselves disagree with each other on the meaning of the verdict.
The decision concerned the possibility for the persecuted members of the Ahmadiyya community to print and disseminate the “Tafseer-e-Sagheer,” the shorter version of the 10-volume “Tafseer-e-Kabeer,” the commentary to the Holy Quran by Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad, the son and successor of Ahmadiyya founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. A man called Mubarak Ahmed Sami had been arrested on January 7, 2023, for disseminating the “Tafseer-e-Sagheer,” thus breaching a Punjab law of 2021 prohibiting the printing and distributing of “heterodox” editions and commentaries of the Holy Quran. The man claimed that he had distributed the book in 2019, when the law was not yet in force. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Qazi Faez Isa agreed with him, noted that criminal laws cannot be retroactive, and had him released.
It was immediately clear that the decision was perceived differently by different sectors of the population in Pakistan. Some legal scholars hailed the decision as a step, modest but real, in favor of religious liberty, as Ahmadis rarely win court cases. The Ahmadiyya community largely did not perceive it as such, as the decision did not establish their right to print and distribute the “Tafseer-e-Sagheer” or other publications and was only based on the issue of non-retroactivity. Radical Sunni Muslims, on the other hand, took to the streets insulting the Chief Justice for having “sided with the Ahmadis.”
The controversy led the Supreme Court to the rare decision of having the February verdict re-examined by a panel of three judges, including the Chief Justice, who on July 24 issued a lengthy explanation. The Justices clarified that they do believe that the Ahmadis are heterodox and cannot call themselves Muslims, nor are they allowed to propagate their ideas outside of their places of worship. The February decision, the Justices said, was only based on the issue of retroactivity.
However, the July 24 verdict did not appease the radical Sunni Muslims either. The reaction came from the Council of Islamic Ideology, which is not a private organization but a constitutional body charged with giving advice to the Parliament and the government on Islamic issues. While it is unclear whether the Council also objected to the Supreme Court’s comments on retroactivity, it considered “scandalous” and “perturbing the whole nation” the fact that the Justices stated in paragraph 42 of their decision that the Ahmadis are not allowed to profess their faith “outside of their places of worship.” This means that they can profess their faith “inside” their places of worship.
The Council commented that “the latter part of paragraph 42, which permits Ahmadis to profess or preach within their places of worship should be reconsidered. They must not be allowed to profess or preach in any manner even within their houses, community centers or in places of worship… They must not be permitted to profess or preach openly, inside their houses or otherwise, as their actions directly desecrate the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Islam, the Quran, and the Sunnah. They should be unequivocally declared as apostates.”
It seems that the Council, an official Pakistani Constitutional body, asks that the Ahmadis should be even more persecuted than they are now. Ironically, its comments came a few days before on Minorities Days, August 11, President Asif Ali Zardari affirmed “Pakistan’s commitment to protecting the religious, social, political, and economic rights of its minorities.”
