

Captain Muhammad Safdar addresses the National Assembly on October 10, 2017.

Speaking in the National Assembly of Pakistan on October 10, 2017, Pakistani lawmaker Capt. (ret.) Muhammad Safdar delivered a speech against Ahmadi Muslims. Pakistan declared the Ahmadi Muslim community non-Muslim in 1974, engendering its persecution.

In his speech, Safdar said that the Ahmadi Muslims had been agents of Israel since the Arab-Israeli war, possibly a reference to Israel's war of independence in 1948. The Middle East Media Research Institute has recently published a series of reports highlighting the growing anti-Ahmadi Muslim sentiment in Pakistan; the community is pejoratively dismissed as Qadiani by Islamic clerics.[1]

Safdar, a son-in-law of former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, belongs to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party that governs Pakistan as well as the influential state of Punjab. Given below are excerpts from his speech to the National Assembly.

Safdar began by disparaging Dr. Abdus Salam, an Ahmadi Muslim from Pakistan who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics:[2]

"Quaid-e-Azam University's physics department [is] named after [Ahmadi Muslim Nobel Laureate in physics] Dr. Abdus Salam. That person is a controversial figure [and] has been declared an infidel by the 1973 constitution. We will not like any such institution in Pakistan to be associated with him...

"Today, I am talking about fikr-e-Maududi [perhaps a book title, literally: Thoughts of Jamaat-e-Islami founder Maulana Syed Abul A'ala Maududi]. The fikr-e-Maududi is that, Hazrat Maulana Maududi wrote two books: one was Qadiani Masla [the Qadiani Problem]. When the Arab-Israel War took place, after this war, the Arabs needed manpower from Pakistan. When they messaged about manpower, [Pakistani labourers] from here went in planes after planes.

"Subsequently, the Saudi government asked... how is our message reaching inside Israel? Then their agencies reported that the people who have come from Pakistan are leaking this [information to Israel]. On this [issue], Syed Abul A'ala Maududi, whose grave is today full of light, wrote a book that was published in Kuwait... After that, he wrote another 425-page book, which was translated into Arabic, saying that these people are those who have no relationship with Islam.

"This [Ahmadi faith] was a plant planted by Israel and the British crown who wanted to create a sect among Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent. After that, all those people were returned [from Saudi Arabia]. And the books by Syed Abul A'ala Maududi were translated into Arabic; then those books [arguing that Ahmadis are not Muslims] were sent to Africa... Mr. Deputy Speaker, if the name of the Quaid-e-Azam University's physics department is not changed, I will protest here every day...

"These people [Ahmadi Muslims] are a threat to this country and this nation, its constitution and ideology.

"And the second important thing I want to bring in the resolution [in the National Assembly] is that the recruitment of Qadianis [Ahmadi Muslims] be banned in the armed forces of Pakistan. The recruitment of Ahmadis be outlawed... Because, in their false religion, there is no concept of jihad in the path of Allah... Decide today, that in this country we do not want to see the enemies of the Prophet [Muhammad] in important positions...

"A person [Ahmadi Muslim] who does not believe in jihad in the path of Allah – that person cannot be a part of our pious [literally: Pak, meaning Pakistani] army. This is an incontrovertible reality.

"Those who are dual nationals, have our passport, that of Britain too, of America too, and of the rest of the countries, is anyone [in the Pakistani government] monitoring them strictly that they might be visiting Israel from those countries? And our country, we are an atomic Pakistan, we have to protect the atomic energy commission [of Pakistan] from these conspirators [Ahmadi Muslims and Israel]..."