Qadianism (Ahmadiyyat) in the News
The Decision to Change the Name of "Rabwah", Pakistan
November 25, 1998

On Tuesday, November 11, 1998, the patriotic members of the Punjab Assembly, including both members of the treasury and opposition groups, unanimously approved a historic resolution to change the name of the city of Rabwah. This move came almost after 50 years of tireless effort by Muslim scholars and Pakistani personalities and following a wave of pressure by the courageous people of Pakistan. American Muslims would like to extend their appreciation and congratulations to the fair-minded and truth seeking people of Pakistan.

Rabwah, a town located almost 90 miles South West of Lahore, in Tahseel Chiniot, District Chang, was established in 1948, on land obtained from the British Colonialists, by the then head of the Qadiani movement, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood. Qadianis had declared the city to be the worldwide headquarters of their movement and had spared no expense to give it the appearance of an independent government, complete with Finance and Information Bureaus. This was an illegal Vatican-style state, within the State of Pakistan, where Muslims were intimidated from entering and barred from building their schools and places of worship. This abuse of divine rights of Muslims at the hand of Qadiani leaders continued, until the year 1974, when their stronghold on power inherited from the British was finally loosened and they were declared to be a non-Muslim minority.

The word “Rabwah” is mentioned in the holy Quran, chapter The Believers, verse 50, in reference to Prophet Eisa [Jesus](peace be upon him) and his honored mother, Mary(may Allah be pleased with her), when Allah recounted their migration in the following words:

Muslim scholars and researchers have identified this place to be somewhere in the holy land.

However, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood misappropriated this term to offend the religious belief of Muslims, draw a parallel between the migration of Eisa(pbuh) and his group from Qadian, India, to Rabwah, Pakistan, and deceptively lend support to his father’s claim that he had been the Messiah, Eisa(pbuh), whose return was foretold by the last Messenger of Allah, Muhammad(peace be upon him).

Since Qadianism has been exposed as a non-Muslim faith by all Muslim scholars and in accordance to irrefutable teachings of Quran and hadith, its followers have no right to misuse the religious epithets of Islam, abuse and ridicule the religious rights of the Muslims, and deceive the uninformed. The name of Rabwah needed to be changed to end a dangerous and deceptive misinterpretation by Qadiani missionaries and spare future generation of Muslims from the deceptive arguments of Qadianis drawing a parallel between their invented city and the site mentioned in the holy Quran.

It is interesting to note that following this purely internal decision, Western Media, a few vocal “human rights” advocates, and Qadiani spokespeople expressed their disapproval of this resolution by the representatives of the people of the sovereign state of Pakistan. If this issue, as they assert, is of no importance and consequence, then we should all wonder why they have even bothered to ridicule and offend the people of Pakistan.  This unfair objection has only served to further expose their bias against Islam and the People of Pakistan and reinforce the idea that many of the so called “news” and “human rights” organizations are unjustly used as Political tools to mock and attack Islam and the believers.