New Delhi: Over six months after the provincial cabinet of Pakistan’s most populous state, Punjab, approved an amendment to West Pakistan Rules under Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, the oath of Khatam-e-Nabuwat — testifying belief in the finality of the Prophet at the time of nikah, or marriage — has officially been made mandatory to marriage certificates. The new rules could be used to further discriminate against the Ahmadiyaas, a community that the State of Pakistan does not consider as Muslims. The law attempts to make yet another legal distinction between a Muslim and sects such as Ahmadiyaas and Qadiani that many in Pakistan consider to be non-Muslims.
Ahmadi Muslims believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the sect, to be the “subordinate prophet”, an idea that a Sunni-majoritarian Pakistan finds treacherous.
Any failure to use the updated form when granting marriage licences in accordance with Punjab Muslim Family Rules under Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 would be punishable by a brief imprisonment or a fine, Dawn had cited the law as saying in an earlier report.
The Punjab government announced the move on its Twitter account Friday, uploading a 25-second video which has already received over 1.5 lakh views and 13,000 likes on the platform.
پنجاب حکومت کے حکم پر نکاح نامہ میں ختم نبوت ﷺ کا حلف نامہ لازم قرار دے دیا گیا: pic.twitter.com/34kOgTjMuA
— Government of Punjab (@GovtofPunjabPK) October 14, 2022
The Punjab assembly first backed the oath of Khatam-e-Nabuwat for nikah in October 2021, as part of a session in which then-Speaker and current Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi had deliberately skipped over other issues on the agenda, such as price hikes.
“A public-interest resolution was taken out of turn and adopted unanimously, recommending the inclusion of Khatm-i-Nabuwat oath in the marriage documents…Meanwhile, the opposition PML-N protested against the prevailing price-hike outside the assembly building,” Dawn had reported at the time.
Moreover, in July this year, the Punjab government and community development department had issued an updated form containing the amendment that incorporated the oath of Khatam-e-Nabuwat and directed union councils’ secretaries to ensure that marriage registrars exclusively use the updated form to solemnise marriages, Dawn had reported.
But the oath of Khatam-e-Nabuwat has a controversial past and present, rooted in Islamic sectarianism within Pakistan, as it was historically led and supported by far-Right Sunni revivalists in Pakistan, particularly Barelvis.
More recent supporters include the once-banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and its spearhead Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who backed violent riots and political assassinations before his passing in November 2020.
Most notably, in the eyes of the Sunni far-Right in Pakistan, the testifying of belief in the finality of the Prophet involves the exclusion of and discrimination against Ahmadiyya Muslims, which goes back centuries.
“Last year, PML-N and PML-Q provincial lawmakers jointly tabled a resolution calling for the inclusion of the finality of the Prophethood (SAW) clause in the marriage certificate to discourage marital ties between Muslims and Qadianis,” Daily Pakistan had reported in March 2022.
Ahmadiyyas have frequently been labelled with the ‘Qadiani’ slur, named after the Punjabi town in which the Ahmadiyya movement’s founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was born.