The Ahmadis : community, gender, and politics in a Muslim society

Dedicated to supernatural revelation and the divine governance of society, Pakistan's Ahmadi community has endured mob violence and penal sanctions for refusing to embrace the beliefs of the Sunni majority. They disagree with fundamentalist ideas of exclusiveness and consider themselves a reformed version of Islam. Although they have adopted Enlightenment ideas about the pursuit of scientific knowledge and produced a notable number of technicians, doctors, and scientists, women continue to live under a strict definition of purdah and the community remains conservative. The Ahmadis reveals a society strictly grounded in divinely prescribed patterns - including parental authority, close family ties, a disposition towards gender-specific roles, and separation of the sexes - but at odds with fanatical Muslim fundamentalism, whose wrath has spread beyond the Ahmadi minority to include the West. Table of Contents The Ahmadis : Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society by Gualtieri, Antonio Terms of Use Introduction: Tradition and Modernity p. vii 1 Setting the Scene p. 5 Part 1 Community 2 Piety and Religious Practice in Rabwah p. 19 3 Social Life and Institutions p. 38 Part 2 Gender 4 Purdah and Vocation p. 77 Part 3 Politics 5 Islam, Politics, and the Ahmadis p. 113 6 Harassment and Persecution p. 133 Conclusion p. 155 Afterword p. 157 Acknowledgments p. 159 Glossary p. 161 Appendix 1 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 1835-1908, Founder of Ahmadiyyat p. 169 Appendix 2 The Khalifa on Purdah p. 173 Appendix 3 The Ahmadis as Crypto-Zionists p. 179 Bibliography p. 185 Index p. 189 Copyright ® 2011 R.R. Bowker LLC. All Rights Reserved. Summary The Ahmadis : Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society by Gualtieri, Antonio Terms of use Ahmadi Muslims are in a minority wherever they live. They are strongly committed to supernatural revelation and governance by the divine. They maintain exacting standards of authority, family life, and relations between the sexes. They are despised by Muslim fundamentalists. They have endured hostility, imprisonment, and mob violence. However, in this sequel to his previous work with the Ahmadi, Gualtieri (religion emeritus, Carlton U.) finds they seek to maintain their identity and remain apart, even amongst the Sunni in Pakistan. Gualtieri includes new interviews with elders, families, and women seeking education, examines the conditions of Ahmadi communities after 9/11, and their continued rejection of modernity in any aspect of their lives. He also examines some of the charges their enemies have leveled at them, including Zionism, and the very limited hope that they ever be allowed a state of their own in Pakistan as an indigenous people. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Copyright ® 2011 R.R. Bowker LLC. All Rights Reserved Following on the work he began in Conscience and Coercion: Ahmadi Muslims and Orthodoxy in Pakistan, Antonio Gualtieri returned to Pakistan to continue his conversations with devotees of the Ahmadi community. He reveals how this traditional society deals with conflicts arising from contact with the non-Ahmadi and shows how the Ahmadi survive in a country that is generally hostile to them