Source/Credit: Ahmadiyya Times
By Munir Khan | December 18, 2011
In 1973 the OIC Islamic Summit conference took place in Lahore Pakistan. Prime Minister Zulifiqar Ali Bhutto was the host and the all the Heads of the then Islamic world attending this grand event. This ranged from King Feisal, King Hussein, Qadafi, Arafat, Hafez Asad, Anwar Sadat, Sheikh Zayed and a whole spate of other Muslim leaders. Bhutto was at the peak of his political powers and was anxious to place himself at the centre of the Muslim world. His slogan of Islamic socialism appealed to the zeitgeist of the time, and was viewed with favour by many. Bhutto wanted to secure for himself the vanguard role as the de facto political leader of the Muslim world that could only be acquired through the blessing of Saudi Arabia and King Feisal in particular.
To achieve this Bhutto contrived to flatter King Feisal and had President Idi Amin of Uganda propose that King Feisal s be recognised as the Amir ul Momineen. This suited Bhutto’s purpose to have King Feisal appointed to the religious leadership role amongst the Muslims and reserve for himself the Machiavellian role of principal advisor and leader in all political matters. Bhutto was not in the least religious, and for him religion was simply a means to an end.
West African delegates who held a favourable opinion of the jamaat, and had seen the philanthropic and altruistic activities of the jamaat throughout Africa quickly alerted the jamaat of the proposal and handed over briefing papers and pamphlets being circulated at the conference slandering and criticising the jamaat. It is unclear to this day what exactly happened or was agreed at the conference. It is suggested apocryphally that King Feisal was advised that he couldn’t be recognised as the Amir ul Momineen, as Ahmadis already had an Amir ul Momineen-the Khalifatul Masih. It is alleged that at the conference Bhutto pledged to “fix” this particular problem.
This then was the backdrop to the disturbances and riots that were about to erupt the following year in the summer of 1974. Lest there be any doubt that it was a political decision to move against the jamaat, a recent interview by Bhutto’s then Information Minister Abdul Hafeez Pirzada categorically stated that Bhutto was motivated politically against the jamaat and not in any way for religious reasons.
In April 1974 the Rabwah incident took place where rowdy students from Nishtar Medical College travelling on a train alighted on Rabwah station and proceeded to abuse Ahmadis on the platform and the founder of the jamaat in a vile and disgusting manner. A week later when the students returned to continue their abuse a fracas took place on the railway platform. What happened that day became the subject of a judicial inquiry headed by Justice Samdani, a report that to this day has never seen the light of day. In fact upon inquiries being made about the report the Punjab government recently announced that the report could no longer be found in government archives and had been “lost”!
As if it was pre-planned the Rabwah incident became a pretext for an orgy of bloodletting against Ahmadis throughout Pakistan. As is customary amongst cowardly Mullahs Ahmadis in far flung villages and in isolated pockets were targeted first throughout the next few months. Scores were murdered, mutilated and subjected to all manner of torture and indignity. The demand of the Mullahs was always the same, renounce the Promised Messiah and abuse his holy personage. In each case Ahmadi after Ahmadi embraced shahadat rather than renounce the Promised Messiah. Daily reports came into the centre of fresh outrages against Ahmadis.
In one of the most egregious incidents mobs were incited by Mullahs in the Punjab town of Gujranwala and they attacked its Ahmadi residents. A contemporary account states:
“Four young men ran through the streets of Gujranwala, Pakistan, trying to escape the mob rioters chasing them and reach the house of their friends. Their friends, two brothers, had already arranged to move all the women of their house and others to a nearby neighbour’s home for safety. The four men reached the house of the two brothers with a trail of stone-throwing rioters behind them. The six of them climbed to the roof of the house. The stone throwers, however, had already reached the roofs of adjoining houses and began pelting the men. They were forced to come back down. The men found themselves surrounded and trapped. The rioters proceeded to beat the men with sticks and clubs and continued to stone them. While beating the men, the rioters shouted and demanded the men denounce their Ahmadi faith and “Mirza Sahib”. The six men refused. The rioters then stoned the six men to death. The women of the household fought their tears and mourned quietly afterwards for fear of being heard by outsiders. The six men lay buried beneath the pile of stones for a day. No one dared approach the site of the killing out of fear of the militant perpetrators. The next day, members of the six men’s religious community uncovered the bodies and discreetly buried them. Reports were filed but no charges were made by police”.
M. Nadeem Ahmad Siddiq, “Enforced Apostasy: Zaheeruddin v. State and the Official Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan”, Law and Inequality, December, 1995.
At one point one of critically injured Ahmadis lying in a pool of blood as his life’s blood ebbed out of his bruised and battered body, begged for some water. A cruel & cursed Mullah stepped forward and sweeping up some sand from the ground poured it into the mouth of the dying Ahmadi. The young man was in the prime of his life and had expected to live out his life and achieve all the ambitions that any young man of his age is entitled to expect. Yet in the face of a baying mob that demanded that he simply renounce the Promised Messiah, he refused to bow down or be cowed into submission, and gave the supreme sacrifice of his life. Such was the love of that young man and the 6 other Ahmadis who were murdered in that one day in Gujranwala, for the Promised Messiah that they all chose to stand tall, and never once flinched before the Yazid of their day – the Pakistani Mullah.
Throughout the summer months of 1974 Ahmadis suffered terrible torture, trial and tribulation. Up till that point the disturbances had been confined to the Punjab & Sind provinces. But the conflagration was about to sweep into the NWFP province or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it is now known. To this point Ahmadis had generally exercised restraint and had not fought back. But not for any longer.
In the village of Topi near the town Swabi a number of Ahmadi Pashtun’s lived on their ancestral lands. They were the Khan’s of the village and were considered so brave and fearless that for many years they had been entrusted with the personal security of the Khalifatul Masih during the annual Jalsa Salana. Every year at each Jalsa in Rabwah the Topi Pashtun’s would arrive in Rabwah and takeover what is now referred to as Hifazat I Khaas duties. They took immense pride in the honour and responsibility placed upon their shoulders and performed their duties diligently led by Subedar Abdul Ghafoor a grizzled and tough army veteran, and his urbane brother in law Sahibzada Abdul Hamid;these were the leaders of the Topi clan.
The cowardly Mullahs knew of the Topi Ahmadi enclave and decided to target the Ahmadis in the village. They descended en masse in their hundreds and knowing that Pashtun’s were always heavily armed as a matter of course, the Mullah’s equally came armed with all manner of weaponry. Their demands were the same namely renounce adherence to the jamaat and abuse the Promised Messiah. But these Ahmadis had like the Gujranwala Ahmadis no intention of bowing before the Mullahs or take one step back in the face of the bloodthirsty mob that had gathered outside the family compounds.
The Ahmadis of Topi were no braver than other Ahmadis across Pakistan who had given the supreme sacrifice. Every Ahmadi across Pakistan knew that this was the hour of reckoning and all the shuhada, and other victims of persecution had all faced their fate with equanimity and a resolute defiance; and not one had flinched. Ahmadis in Punjab and Sind had been isolated, small in number and unarmed; the difference between the Ahmadis of Topi was that they had the means to fight back. They had no other option but to resist and fight against the onslaught of the hordes of Mullahs gathered in Topi.
For the next three days and nights the Ahmadis of Topi fought for their lives against wave after wave of Mullahs attacking their family compounds. Their womenfolk were in the compound with their men and stood bravely beside their husbands, brothers & sons as they fought off the waves of Mullahs. Some brave and principled non Ahmadi family members fought beside their Ahmadi family brethren. Ahmadi and non Ahmadis fighting on the side of justice embraced shahadat during those three terrible days and nights. Each of those Ahmadis knew that if any of them flinched or took a step back they would be overrun and torn to pieces, and yet not one took a step back.
The full story of the siege of Topi was the stuff of legend that will live on in the annals of Ahmadiyyat, but when the dust settled and the authorities regained control they found that a few Ahmadis had tragically lost their lives.
News spread throughout Pakistan of the events that had occurred in Topi and the authorities were informed that Ahmadis had taken a stand and fought back. The cowardly Mullahs were terrified and surprised and demanded protection from the authorities!
Following the stand taken by the Topi Ahmadis no other Ahmadi lives were lost that year and the disturbances abated with the Mullahs retreating in cowardly disarray.
On that day in the summer of 1974 the Ahmadis of Topi had stood tall.
-- By Munir Khan
-- Ahmadiyya Times
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