This book is about the history and politics of religious exclusion of the Ahmadis in Pakistan through the lens of anti-Ahmadi violence in Pakistan carried out in the name of tehrik-i-khatam-i-nabuwwat (movement for the protection of the finality of prophethood) in 1953 and 1974. The Ahmadis, contrary to the general consensus among Muslims on the finality of Muhammad's prophethood, believe in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) of Qadiyan as a prophet in a nuanced understanding of this term and as the promised messiah. Tehrik-i-khatam-i-nabuwwat was a set of demands put forward by the ulema and some religio-political parties – especially Majlis-i-Ahrar – during the 1950s whose influence was mostly concentrated in the urban centers of Punjab. They primarily demanded Ahmadis to be declared as a non-Muslim minority on the account of their “heretical” views and removed from key military and bureaucratic posts for their alleged disloyalty towards the state of Pakistan. Anti-Ahmadi disputations had existed during the colonial period as well, but in the context of the postcolonial state of Pakistan, ideologically predicated on the instrumentalization of Islam as the basis for national identity, a theological polemic was transformed into a political issue demanding action from the state.

For a study of the events of 1953, this work focuses on the Munir–Kiyani report published in 1954 and the declassified archival material comprising of the record of the proceedings of this court of inquiry. Similarly, for the debates which ultimately resulted in the Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan in 1974, whereby Ahmadis were declared a non-Muslim minority, the recently declassified record of the proceedings of the National Assembly has been used. The purpose of this book is not simply to chronicle the events of anti-Ahmadi violence based on official documents but also to analyze these sources by foregrounding the commentative and interpretative aspects with which these issues were addressed and through which information about them was collated. This requires delineating the statist discourse carrying the imprints of the ideological worldviews and intellectual predilections of the power elites directing this discourse and the official archive they collected about these events.