Islamabad, Jan 3 (IANS) A Pakistani court has sentenced a member of the Ahmadi community to life imprisonment for using the title “Hafiz”, meaning “one who knows the Quran by heart,” and for distributing the “Tafsir-e-Saghir,” a collection of Quranic translations and commentary respected within his community, a report said on Saturday.

“On 24 December 2025, an Additional Sessions Court in Lalian, Punjab, delivered a verdict that should shame any legal system claiming to uphold justice. Mubarak Ahmad Saani, an Ahmadi Muslim, was sentenced to life imprisonment under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. His crime was not desecrating the Quran, not insulting Islam, not inciting violence or hatred, but calling himself a ‘Hafiz’, and distributing a book of Quranic translation and commentary revered by his community,” a report in the online magazine ‘Bitter Winter’ detailed.

“The court’s decision criminalises reverence, punishes piety, and weaponises theology to persecute a man whose only offence was to practice his faith with sincerity and devotion — a faith that Pakistan’s legal machinery has systematically declared illegal,” it added.

According to the report, in a ruling that defies both “legal logic and theological humility”, the court conducted a doctrinal analysis of Ahmadi “heresies,” declaring the book a “defiled, desecrated translation of the Holy Quran,” and invoking a provision of Pakistan’s blasphemy law that prescribes life imprisonment those who burn, tear, or otherwise desecrate the Quran.

“But Saani did none of these things. He did not destroy the Quran. He circulated it. He revered it. He offered a translation and commentary that his community has cherished for decades. This is the perverse genius of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. They punish interpretations and police theology. And when applied to Ahmadis, they become a tool of religious apartheid—a system in which the Sunni majority dictates not only who may call themselves Muslim, but who may read, translate, and honour the Quran,” it mentioned.

The report stressed that the case of Mubarak Ahmad Saani highlights the broader campaign against Ahmadis in Pakistan — a campaign that has criminalised religious identity, equates theological nuance with blasphemy, and treats peaceful devotion as a punishable offence.

“Ahmadis are barred from calling themselves Muslims. They are forbidden from using Islamic terminology. Their mosques are not recognised as mosques. Their religious literature is banned. Their graves are desecrated. Their lives are endangered. And now, their memorisation of the Quran is treated as a criminal act,” the report noted.

–IANS

scor/as