Islamic Info

INTIFADA
Intifada (“shaking off”) is the name given to two Palestinian uprisings against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The first began in December of 1987 as a popular uprising, its hallmark being the image of Palestinian youths throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied territories. This Intifada was triggered by an incident in Gaza that turned violent and subsequently spread rapidly to the West Bank territories. Over the next several years, the Intifada escalated, involving demonstrations, strikes, riots, and violence against Israelis. The Intifada lasted until 1993 when, in response to the uprising, the Oslo Accords were drawn up between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

Al-Aqsa Intifada began after Ariel Sharon, a leader of the Israeli right-wing LIKUD Party, visited al-Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), in Jerusalem, on 28 September 2000. Al- Haram, which contains al-Aqsa Mosque, is the third holiest shrine of Islam. The visit was provocative to Palestinians, especially because Sharon was accompanied by one thousand riot police, but what triggered the Intifada the following day was the Israeli police use of live ammunition and rubber bullets against unarmed, rock-throwing Palestinian demonstrators, killing six and injuring 220. The fundamental cause of al-Aqsa Intifada was the breakdown, in July 2000, of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that had begun with the Oslo Accords of 1993. Palestinians expected that the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) recognition of Israel, which was a part of that agreement, would lead to an end of the thirty-three-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and to the establishment of a Palestine state. However, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza doubled to 187,000 and increased to 170,000 in East Jerusalem in the 1990s, and Israel confiscated more Palestinian land for the settlements and their access roads. Israel extended its policy of restricting the movement of Palestinians, and of establishing checkpoints where Palestinians experienced humiliation. Israel also continued to demolish homes and to uproot and burn olive and fruit trees, as a form of collective punishment and for security reasons. In short, Israeli repression and unmet Palestinian expectations of freedom and independence contributed to years of pent-up frustration, despair, and rage. Like the first Intifada, Palestinians in October 2000 began by using nonviolent methods. After 144 Palestinians had been
killed, however, Islamist groups, such as HAMAS and Islamic Jihad, began a campaign of suicide bombings against mostly civilians in the occupied territories and Israel, while groups associated with Fatah organization, such as al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, focused on resistance against Israeli army incursions and conducted attacks on settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. Starting in January 2002, al-Aqsa Brigade also began conducting suicide bombings against mostly Israeli civilians, a practice condemned by the international community. Yasir _Arafat, head of Fatah and the PLO, and president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) since 1996, did not initiate the Intifada, but he reportedly gave tacit approval to armed resistance and terrorism, despite his promise made in the Oslo Accords in 1993 to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to renounce “the use of terrorism and other acts of violence.”
Sharon became Israel’s Prime Minister on 6 February 2001. A proponent of Greater Israel, an architect of the settlements, and an opponent of the Oslo process, he proceeded, with broad public support, to use harsh measures against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. In response to Palestinian violence, he initiated a policy of assassinations, euphemistically called “targeted killings,” of suspected terrorists leaders, but which included activists and innocent bystanders. He reoccupied major Palestinian cities, using helicopter gunships, war planes and tanks. Some of Sharon’s methods were condemned by both human rights groups and the United States. The Intifada was costly to the Palestinians, Israel, and the United States during the first thirty months. Some strategists, including Palestinian analysts, considered the militarization of the Intifada to be a blunder. The Oslo process wasdestroyed, _Arafat sidelined, the Palestinian economy damaged, and the PA areas occupied, while settlement construction continued apace. Sharon’s harsh measures cost the lives of over 2,000 Palestinians, of whom most were civilians, including about 275 children. In addition, the Palestinians lost much popular, moral, and diplomatic support around the world. The Intifada also cost the lives of over 700 Israelis, most of whom were civilians, brought insecurity to their lives, and resulted in the loss of faith in the Palestinians as peace partners.

Islam is religion of peace and word Islam means ‘submission to God’,’ peace’ and ‘way to peace’. Islam is the monotheistic religion and based on Holy Quran and sunnat of Holly Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Islam is the second largest religion of the world after Christianity but one thing is important to mention that Islam religion is the fast spreading religion of the world.

According to religion Islam, God is one and incomparable. Islam is the last and most complete religion on the world and Muhammad (PBUH) is the last prophet of Allah (God). There are two main sects in religion of Islam i.e. Sunni and Shia. There are approximately 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and Indonesia is the largest Muslim country of the world with about 13 percent Muslim Population of the world.

In 622 C.E. the Meccan prophet Muhammad immigrated to Yathrib, later known as Medina (al-nabi), on the invitation of a group of Arabs from that town. This event is termed hijra. Having sent his adherents ahead, Muhammad secretly followed with Abu Bakr b. Quhafa, leaving _Ali b. _Abi Talib in his (Muhammad’s) bed, to deceive the Meccans who sought to kill him. On the way they stopped at a cave on Mount Thaur, where a spider’s web, spun across the entrance, fooled the Meccans into not looking within (Q. 9:40). Here, according to Sufi tradition, the Prophet taught Abu Bakr the secrets of silent remembrance, dhikr-e khafi,which earned Abu Bakr the title Yar-e ghar, friend of the cave.

Hijra has also been interpreted to mean “the breaking of old ties,” cutting off the era of knowledge from the previous era of ignorance (jahiliyya). The caliph _Umar b. al Khattab, establishing an Islamic calendar, chose this event as its starting point. Muhammad reached Medina in September 622. The calendar opens wih the first month of the Arabic lunar year in June 622 and proceeds without intercalation for a 354- day year in keeping with the lunar months. Hijra is based on the root h-j-r, the root of the name Hagar, the concubine of Abraham; the term Mahagraye was used by Christian sources to describe the Arab-Muslims, the descendants of Hagar. Muhajirun is the Arabic term given to those who emigrated from Mecca with the Prophet.

Jahannum or Hell in Islam according to The Quran

Jahannam (Hell) is a designation for hell and is related to the cognate Hebrew word gehinnom (“Hinnom Valley”), originally a site near ancient Jerusalem where children were immolated as sacrificial offerings, which subsequently became a garbage dump. In early Jewish and Christian eschatology, Gehenna was believed to be where wrongdoers would be punished by fire in the hereafter. This is the meaning Jahannam carries in the Qur_an (where it is mentioned seventy-seven times), the hadith, and later Islamic eschatological discourses.

It is often used synonymously with “the Fire” (“nar”), and in juxtaposition to “the Garden” (“janna”), the Islamic paradise of the blessed. The Qur_an depicts Jahannam as an infernal dwelling or refuge with seven gates (counterparts for the seven heavens) awaiting unbelievers, hypocrites, and other sorts of offenders (4:140; 15:43–44). It will be the fiery abode of jinns and satans, as well as humans (11:119; 19:68), including polytheists and “people of the book” (98:6). Indeed, according to one verse, all will go to Jahannam, but God will save the pious and abandon wrongdoers there on their knees (19:72). Polytheists and their idols will become fuel for its fire (21:98). The authoritative hadith collections, such as those of al-Bukhari (d. 870), Muslim (d. 875), and Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), expand upon these Qur_anic discourses, detailing its horrific features and inhabitants. Hadiths describe it as a pit of fire seventy times hotter than earthly fire, guarded by the angel Malik, into which plunge the damned who fail to cross a narrow test bridge (al-sirat) that traverses it.

They enumerate the kinds of sinners punished there, among whom are the Jahannamites— Muslims who have committed major transgressions, but who will eventually win entry to paradise. The most elaborate descriptions were formulated in the tenth century C.E., and later commentaries and eschatological texts are those of al-Tabari (d. 922), al-Samarqandi (d. c. 983), al-Ghazali (d. 1111), al-Qurtubi (d. 1273), Ibn Kathir (d.1373), Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1350), and al-Suyuti (d. 1505). In these books, Jahannam is said to consist of seven hierarchical levels, the highest for Muslims and the lower levels for Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, polytheists, and hypocrites. Commentators furnished it with geographic features such as blazing mountains, valleys, rivers, and seas, as well as houses, prisons, bridges, wells, and ovens. They also provided it with venomous scorpions and snakes to tormentits inhabitants. In modern times, Jahannam remains a popular sermon topic.

Battle of Karbala & Great Martyr Imam Hussain

Karbala is the second largest town in Iraq, with over 350,000 inhabitants in the early twenty-first century. It is situated about sixty miles southwest of Baghdad, where the mausoleum of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn (Mashhad Husayn) was erected and frequently destroyed and restored during the early centuries of Islam.
When the first Umayyad Sunni caliph, Mu_awiya, died in 680 C.E., his son Yazid came to power. The majority of Muslims saw the nomination of Yazid to the caliphate as an usurpation of the notion of consensus (ijma_), the legitimate means of choosing a caliph. When Husayn received confirmation of the loyalty of the Kufis from his cousin Muslim Ibn _Aqil, he headed toward Kufa. On his way, Husayn learned that his cousin had died at the hands of Yazid’s men and that the Kufis had shifted their allegiance to Yazid.
Husayn nevertheless continued in the direction of Kufa. Ibn Ziyad, the governor of Kufa, with one thousand soldiers at his command, told Husayn that he could neither go to Kufa nor return to Mecca, and was permitted only to go to Damascus, the capital. Instead, Husayn led his heavily outnumbered and underequipped followers to battle in Karbala,
where they were slain mercilessly on the battlefield. This event played an important role in the development of Shi_ite theology and has been the source of dissension among Muslims. The battle of Karbala accentuated the split between the two major branches of Islam. The event forged in Shi_ite Muslims an identity as believers who are subjected to persecution for the sake of the true succession of Muhammad. A cult of martyrdom is linked to the death and downfall of Husayn at Karbala. The _Ashura (date of Husayn’s death) was elaborated upon and systematized in the articulation of Shi_ite theology. Every year during the first ten days of the month of hijra, the battle of Karbala is commemorated by Shi_ite Muslims during Muharram, and many go on pilgrimage to Karbala. Husayn’s martyrdom has become a source of strength and endurance for Shi_ite Muslims in times of suffering, persecution, and oppression. During its long history the tomb of Husayn was desecrated several times and had to be restored. In 850 and 851, the Sunni Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil destroyed the tomb of Husayn and prohibited pilgrimages to the sanctuary.

Sulayman the Magnificent visited the tomb in 1534 and 1535 and participated in its restoration. At the end of the eighteenth century Agha Muhammad Khan, the founder of the Qajar dynasty, covered the dome in gold and the manara of the sanctuary. In April 1802, twelve thousand Wahhabis under Shaykh Sa_ud invaded Karbala, killed over three thousand inhabitants, and sacked the city.

Talaq in Islam and Islamic Laws about Talaq

Dicorce or Talaq in Islam: In Islamic law, the husband has the exclusive right to talaq, termination of marriage. Talaq is defined as a unilateral act, which takes legal effect by the husband’s declaration. Neither grounds for divorce nor the wife’s presence or consent are necessary, but the husband must pay his wife’s mahr—translated in English as “dower,” this is the gift the bridegroom offers the bride upon marriage—if he has not done so at the time of marriage, and maintenance (nafaqa) during the _idda period (three menses after the declaration).
The wife, however, cannot be released from marriage without her husband’s consent, although she can buy her release by offering him compensation. This is referred to as “divorce by mutual consent” and can take two forms: In khul_, the wife claims separation because of her extreme dislike (ikrah) of her husband, and there is no ceiling on the amount of compensation that she pays; in mubarat the dislike is mutual and the amount of compensation should not exceed the value of the mahr itself.

If the wife fails to secure her husband’s consent, her only recourse is the intervention of a judge who has the power either to compel the husband to pronounce talaq or to pronounce it on his behalf. Known as faskh (recission), tafriq (separation), or tatliq (compulsory issue of divorce), this outlet has become the common juristic basis on which a woman can obtain a court divorce in contemporary Muslim world. The facility with which a woman can obtain such a divorce and the grounds on which she can do so vary in the different schools of Islamic law and in different countries. The Maliki school is the most liberal and grants the widest grounds upon which a woman can initiate divorce proceedings. Among Muslim states where Islamic law is the basis of family law, women in Tunisia enjoy easiest access to divorce.

FEDAIYAN-E ISLAM
Feda_iyan-e Islam was a Shi_ite fundamentalist group that was founded in Iran in 1945 by Sayyed Mujtaba Mir Lauhi (known as Navvab-e Safavi), a man then in his early twenties, with little or no formal Islamic education. Unsettled by the writings of the controversial essayist and historian Ahmad Kasravi, Safavi masterminded his assassination in March 1946. This was followed by the assassination in November 1949 of _Abd al-Husayn Hazhir, the influential minister of court, and in March 1951 of prime minister Hajji _Ali Razmara, who opposed the nationalization of the British-owned oil industry. The Feda_iyan had enlisted the support of the activist ayatollah Abu ’l-Qasem Kashani, but failed to win over the highest-ranking religious authority in the country, Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi.

The Feda_iyan’s relations with Kashani became strained due to the latter’s support for prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, who assumed power in late April 1951. Refusing to give in to the Feda_iyan’s demands for the establishment of shari_a regulations, Mosaddeq detained Safavi in June 1951. In February 1952, the Feda_iyan’s attempted assassination of Mosaddeq’s key colleague, Husayn Fatimi, left Fatimi severely injured. By mid-1952 the Feda_iyan had resumed its ties with Kashani, who had begun to oppose Mosaddeq. In the months preceding the coup of August 1953, which toppled Mosaddeq, the Feda_iyan’s antigovernment position led the American and British secret services to count on the group to help oust Mosaddeq. In November 1954 the group’s failed attempt on the life of prime minister Husayn _Ala resulted in the execution of Safavi and three of his colleagues. Despite this crippling blow, affiliates of the group were able to assassinate nother prime minister, Hasan _Ali Mansur, in January 1965. Based mainly in Tehran, the Feda_iyan largely consisted of young men of limited education, lower class origins, and traditional occupations. The group appealed to the resentments of the lower and underclass urban elements; this, together with its challenge to the ruling elite, enabled it to acquire a significance disproportionate to its size. Ideologically resembling the al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt, the Feda_iyan espoused a literal reading of Islamic writings and laws; they abhorred what they considered to be decadence resulting from irreligion; they feared modernity, secularism, communism, and civic-nationalism, and were bent on eliminating those whom they regarded as obstacles in their path or stooges of foreigners. Their primary goal was to establish the shari_a, giving a crucial sociopolitical role to clerics. Following the revolution of 1978 and 1979, many of the beliefs that had animated the Feda_iyan became part of the ruling ideology but gradually came to be identified with the proclivities of the Iranian regime’s traditionalist and right-wing factions

Ahle Hadees

The Ahle Hadees emerged as a distinctive orientation among Indian ulema in the late-nineteenth-century milieu of reformist thought, publication, debate, and internal proselytizing. Like other reformers, they fostered devotion to the prophet Muhammad and fidelity to shari_a. Unlike them, they opposed jurisprudential taqlid (imitation) of the classic law schools in favor of direct use of hadith. They also opposed the entire institution of Sufism, a stance that further marginalized them. Like the Deobandis, they claimed to be heirs of Shah Wali Allah (d. 1763), and they encouraged simplification of ceremony and the practice of widow remarriage. Their practices in the canonical prayer (including uttering “amen” aloud and lifting their hands at the time of bowing) led to conflicts ultimately settled in British courts.
Core supporters of the Ahl-e Hadis came from educated and often well-born backgrounds. Cosmopolitan in orientation, they identified themselves with similar groupsin Afghanistan and Arabia. Within India, they turned to princes for  Support, most famously with the marriage of Maulana Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832–1890) to the ruling Begum of Bhopal. Siddiq Hasan supported the classic interpretations of jihad,without the apologetic glosses of the day. Despite his writing  to the contrary, he was suspected of disloyalty, as was another major figure in the movement, Sayyid Nazir Husain (d. 1902), who was briefly arrested as a “Wahhabi,” as supporters of the Arab Muhammad Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792) were called. Suspicion of the Ahl-e Hadis abated by 1889, marked by the success of a campaign to drop the word “Wahhabi” in official British colonial correspondence.
The armed Lashkar-e Tayyiba, affiliated with the Ahl-e Hadis in Pakistan, is alleged to have been active both within Pakistan and Kashmir since the 1990s.
The Ahl al-Hadith (people of the traditions) appear to have developed out of a pious reaction to the assassination of Caliph Yazid b. Walid (d. 744). Prior to Yazid’s assassination, scholars who emphasized hadith (traditions of the prophet Muhammad) as the primary source for interpreting the Will of God were disorganized  and fairly removed from the widespread emphasis on applying varying levels of reason to the Qur_an. Yazid’s assassination was interpreted by more conservative groups as a revolution against the predestined plan of God. Whether or not the early Ahl al-Hadith were aligned with the Umayyad caliphate, as were many of the Jabriyya (advocates of predestination), it is clear that many understood Yazid’s assassination as a sign of the general decay of the Muslim community, the blame for which they assigned to the uncontrolled use of personal opinion by the Ahl al-Ra_y (people of considered opinion).

After the Abbasid revolution (c. 720–750), the Ahl al-Hadith developed into the main group opposed to the dominance of the rationalist theology of the Mutazilites. During the religious inquisition or Mihna (833–850) many of the Ahl al-Hadith were imprisoned for refusing to agree to the doctrine of the Created Qur_an. Members of the Ahl al-Hadith, such as Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), became important religious and social leaders due to their refusal to recant their beliefs in the eternal nature of the Qur_an. After the Mihna, the Ahl al-Hadith led an anti rationalist movement that forced advocates of rationalist thought underground. In the centuries following the initial triumph of the Ahl al-Hadith, a middle ground emerged that placed greater emphasis on a combination of reason and tradition. The Ahl al-Hadith formed a school of legal thought named after Ahmad Ibn Hanbal that continued to pursue legal methods that focused less on uses of reason and more on tradition. The Hanbali fixation on tradition led to a series ofreform movements that have sought to “revive” the moral and ethical standards of the  first generations of Muslims. The contemporary influence of Ahl al-Hadith ideology continues to be important for a number of diverse groups. Organizations such as the Indonesian Muhammadiyah and the Islamic Society of North America, as well as the violent al-Qa_ida and Islamic Jihad, each bases its ideologies on ideas that emerged out of the Ahl al-Hadith and Hanbali movement over the last eight centuries.

The Ahmadiyya or Ahmadis movement was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the Punjab province of British India in 1889, at a time of competition for converts among new Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Christian reform and missionary movements. Divisions among Sunni Muslims on appropriate responses following the failure in 1857 of a widespread rebellion against the British were reflected in the growth of new religious movements in the north west, particularly at Deoband and Aligarh. Ghulam Ahmad’s claims to be the recipient of esoteric spiritual knowledge, transmitted to him through visions, attracted attention in such a setting. Doctrinally, he aroused hostility among Sunnis mainly because of his own claim to prophethood. His definition of jihad as concerned with “cleansing of souls,” rather than with military struggle, was less controversial at a stage when most Muslims had accepted the practical necessity of acquiesence to British rule.
Some have viewed the insights that drew disciples to him as sufistic in essence, though his denunciation of rivals caused detractors to question the spirituality of the movement. In 1889, shortly after publishing his first book Al-Barahin al-Ahmadiyya (Ahmadiyya proofs; 4 vols, 1880–1884), Ghulam Ahmad began to initiate disciples. His claims two years later that he was both masih (messiah) and mahdi (rightly guided one), and subsequent claims to powers of prophethood, caused outrage among Muslims, which was expressed in tracts and newspapers and in fatawa condemning him for denying the doctrine of khatm al-nabuwwa (finality of Muhammad’s prophethood). Public controversies also marked relations with his non-Muslim rivals, notably the Arya Samaj Hindu revivalist leaders with whom he clashed frequently, especially after he claimed to be an avatar of Krisna, and with Protestant Christian missionaries in the Punjab. Christians objected to his view that Jesus had died naturally in Kashmir, and that Ghulam Ahmad was the promised “second messiah.” He cultivated good relations, however, with the British colonial authorities who appreciated his advocacy of loyalty to the Raj. Although his personal dynamism, including the fear he inspired through the issuing of death prophecies, was responsible for his notoriety among his Punjab enemies, it also drew many initiates, mainly from Sunni Islam. On his death, a disciple, Maulvi Nur al Din, became his khalifa (successor; 1908–1914).

The movement took stronger institutional form on 27 December 1891, when Ghulam Ahmad called the first annual gathering at Qadiyan, subsequently the center for all Ahmadi activities. Newspapers were soon established, including Al- Hakam (1897) and The Review of Religions (1902). Directed by Ghulam Ahmad that Ahmadis should demand separate categorization from Sunnis in the 1901 census, and that non- Ahmadi Muslims were kafirs (unbelievers), that intensified Sunni hostility. The community nevertheless prospered.
Although scorned for their allegedly low social origins, many Ahmadis were of middle class professional status (landowners, entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers). Those of lower origins took advantage of opportunities offered within the community to raise their educational level and hence status. Many Ahmadi women were well educated. Numbers rose to approximately nineteen thousand in Punjab by 1911, rising to about twenty-nine thousand by 1921. Careful marriage arrangements, as well as missionary activity, helped increase the membership, which then spread outside India, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia, through well-organized overseas missionary programs.
A split in 1914 divided the movement in the Punjab but did not obstruct progress, for those who remained at Qadiyan, and the new, Lahore-based, secessionary branch, continued to use similar missionary and disciplinary methods to consolidate their communities. Differing mainly on understandings of Ghulam Ahmad’s status, the Qadiyanis retained the caliphal leadership, whose incumbents (since 1914 the sons and grandsons of Ghulam Ahmad) have reinforced belief in the founder’s prophetic claims. The Lahoris, organized as the Ahmadiyya Anjuman-e Isha _at-e Islam, regarded Ghulam Ahmad as the “mujaddid [reformer] of the fourteenth century,” and are less easily distinguishable from Sunni Muslims, except in holding Ghulam Ahmad to have been the “promised messiah.” The crucial difference over prophethood has maintained the separate identities of the branches wherever Ahmadiyya has since spread, although missionary work among non-Muslims, especially overseas, tends to stress common ground in Islam.
While Ghulam Ahmad’s direct successors, notably his son, the second caliph, Bashir al Din Mahmud Ahmad, together with Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, have contributed the most influential publications to Qadiyani proselytism, the Lahoris received notable intellectual and missionary leadership from Maulana Muhammad _Ali in the Punjab, and Khwaja Kamal al-Din in London. During the period of overt nationalist struggle in India in the 1920s and 1930s some Lahoris began to support wider  Indian-Muslim agendas. Even though Zafrullah Khan was made president of the Muslim League conference in 1931, most Qadiyanis maintained their strong pro-British stance while clashing verbally and violently with some militant Sunni movements, notably the Ahrars. Yet both groups’ generally loyal stance ensured them considerable practical protection against possible recriminations from Muslims while colonial rule lasted. Independence and Partition brought new problems for both groups. When the Gurdaspur district was allotted to India many Qadiyanis migrated to Pakistan, where theyestablished a new headquarters at Rabwa. Pakistan has not proved congenial to the interests of either branch, although Zafrullah Khan was made Pakistan foreign minister and others initially gained important posts in the civil service, army, and air force. Latent antagonism escalated during the constitution-making controversies of the late 1940s, coming to a head in 1953 when anti-Ahmadiyya riots, encouraged by ulema seeking the constitutional declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims, resulted in many deaths. Although the government fell and a judicial inquiry condemned the attacks, continual pressure on the community culminated in the
National Assembly’s declaration of the Ahmadis as non-Muslim in 1974. The military rule of Zia ul-Haq, which favored Islamization policies on a narrowly Sunni basis,
proved disadvantageous to all minorities: His Ordinance XX of April 1984 prohibited Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslim. Subsequent prohibitions, notably on publishing, and on calling their places of worship mosques, have severely restricted Ahmadi religious life in Pakistan. The head of the Rabwa community, the fourth khalifa, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, migrated to London in the mid-1980s, after which many South Asian Ahmadis have settled outside the subcontinent, thereby strengthening the generally economically prosperous  Ahmadi missionary communities, belonging to both
branches, which were already established in many parts of Africa, in Fiji, and in Southeast Asia, as well as in North America and Europe. Although both branches report growth, there are no reliable statistics on numbers and distribution. Both branches continue to publish prolifically, but there has been little scholarly evaluation of academic and institutional developments, most accounts using the general term Ahmadi to describe both branches.  Ahmadis are all over the world i.e in Pakistan, USA, UK and other countries. Ahamdis are not Muslims and Ahmadiyya Community are not considered as Muslims. They are also known as Qadiani or Qadiani Fitna.

BID or Bida or Sunnat
A bid a (pl. bida_) is an innovation in theology, ritual, or the customs of daily life, that did not exist in early Islam but came into existence in the course of history. The term itself does not appear in the Quran, be it that the Holy Book includes other derivations of the root bd_. In the hadith literature bid_a is often used in contrast with the term sunna. In this sense sunna denotes the exemplary standard for Muslim life, as this was established by the prophet Muhammad and the pious Muslims of early Islam; for this reason, a bid_a, being a deviation from the normative sunna, was almost exclusively regarded as negative. This idea can be found in the canonical collections of hadith literature and, for example, was put into words in the Prophetic saying: “The worst of all things are novelties (muhdathat); every novelty is an innovation (bid_a), and every bid_a is an error (dalala), and every error “leads to hell.”
Apart from this negative understanding of the concept of bid_a, a positive interpretation also could be given to the term. This was done by using another saying from the hadith literature. These words are attributed to the second caliph _Umar who, after he had seen an innovation in the rite of the ritual prayer (salat), is reported to have said: “Truly, this is a good bid_a.” On the basis of this saying the great jurisconsult al-Shafi_i (767–820) made a distinction between good and objectionable bid_as. As a result of this, the possibility was created to introduce new ideas and practices into Islam for which there were no precedents in early Islam, but which could now be accepted as good innovations. Later scholars further manipulated the term bid_a by adding various other, most often legal, adjectives to it. For example, the prolific Egyptian author Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (1445–1505) mentions the application of the five legal classifications (al-ahkam alkhamsa) to the term, thus making a distinction between “forbidden,” “reprehensible,” “indifferent,” “recommended,” and “obligatory” bid_as.

Although this flexible interpretation of the concept of bid_a was thus known from an early period onward, various later scholars adhered to its negative interpretation exclusively. A well-known representative of this stream is the theologian and jurisconsult Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), who spent his entire life fighting bid_as, which
had been added to the original doctrine and practice of Islam, for example, the cult of saints. Under the influence of his teachings, Muhammad ibn _Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) founded the rigid and intolerant reform movement known as Wahhabiyya, which, for example, regarded the use of tobacco and coffee as bid_a. This Wahhabi ideology is also followed by the present-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where consequently the concept of bid_a in its negative sense plays a prominent part in religious and social discourse. An interesting example of this is the official view on the celebration of the birthday (mawlid) of the prophet Muhammad, an opinion that was voiced often by the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom, _Abd al-_Aziz ibn Baz (1910–1999). This festival is strictly forbidden, because it is regarded as a bid_a, “while every bid_a is an error.” Despite the enormous respect for the Prophet, Wahhabis reject celebrating his mawlid because it is rightly understood as a later innovation. On the whole, however, in present-day Islam only a minority adhere to this limited, negative interpretation of the concept of bid_a, while the majority of Muslims approves of a flexible interpretation, which is morecompatible with modern beliefs and practices.