Sociology of Religion Advance Access published April 16, 2015

Sociology of Religion 2015, 0:0 1-22

doi:10.1093/socrel/srv015

When Heterodoxy Becomes Heresy: Using

Bourdieu’s Concept of Doxa to Describe
State-Sanctioned Exclusion in Pakistan

Ali Qadir*

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

University of Tampere

This paper employs and adapts Bourdieu’s concept of doxa to describe the declaration of heresy
against the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan. The Ahmadiyya, avowedly Muslim, were declared heretics by
constitutional amendment in 1974, leading to their widespread persecution and bans on their use
of Islamic symbols. Most analyses of this event—from a statehood and authority/“Othering”
perspective—tend to overlook why the Ahmadi were singled out for this unusual exclusion and why
emphasis was placed on symbolic violence. It discursively analyzes the recently declassified transcript
of parliamentary proceedings to reveal three interlinked theological and political elements of Ahmadi
heterodoxy that challenged the sociopolitical order. The analysis also shows how orthodoxy emerged
and was institutionalized in a dialectical relationship with that heterodoxy. Further, the discussion
focuses on the continuity of symbolic capital inherent in institutionalization and the implications of
this for Ahmadis and other religious “heretics” in Pakistan. By exploring how heterodoxy becomes
heresy, this case highlights the utility of Bourdieu’s schema and proposes some adjustments to it to
better understand modern religious heresy and then export lessons into other analytical domains.
Key words: sociology of heresy; Islam; doxa; symbolic capital; Ahmadiyya; Pakistan.

Sociologists of religion have traditionally focused on underlining the impor-

tance of the category of religion in social behavior. Recent scholarship in the
field, notably in this journal, has turned toward elaborating the complex,
nuanced, and unobtrusive ways in which the category of religion manifests
(Ammerman 2014; Bender et al. 2012; Cadge and Konieczny 2014; Marti 2014).
This paper takes as its starting point that religion in many cases informs sociality,
but goes on to argue that changes within that category are important to under-
stand broader social processes such as citizenship and exclusion. Specifically, the
paper asks how and under what conditions religious heterodoxy, or otherness,

*Direct correspondence to Ali Qadir, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of
Tampere, 33014 Tampere, Finland. Tel: þ358 40 190 13 51. E-mail: ali.qadir@uta.fi.

# The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association for
the Sociology of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.
permissions@oup.com
1
2 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

becomes heresy, and what that entails with regard to social exclusion. In answer-
ing these questions, this paper has two main analytical aims: (1) to show that
while persecution of religious heresy is often symbolic in character, this necessar-
ily entails “real-world” persecution due to state involvement; and (2) to argue
that multiple levels of heterodoxy have to come together discursively in order to
construct the category of “heresy.” In the process, the paper also illustrates how
the general sociological concept of relationality—between heterodoxy and or-
thodoxy—can be contextualized and tuned in the arena of religion to yield
lessons for export to other sociological domains (Wuthnow 2014).
To accomplish this analytic work, the paper employs and adapts Pierre

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Bourdieu’s (1977) schema of doxa, orthodoxy, and heterodoxy to examine the
discourse by which the parliament of Pakistan passed a constitutional amend-
ment in 1974 declaring the Ahmadiyya community legally non-Muslim. State-
sanctioned exclusion of the Ahmadiyya from the category of Islam affected their
social and legal status, leading to unprecedented persecution. Studies of this case
have focused on the (il)legality of the amendment (e.g., Khan 2003; Lathan
2008; Siddiq 1995; Uddin 2013) or on state-formation and realpolitik in
Pakistan (Khan 2012; Saeed 2007). However, this scholarship tends to overlook
the question of heresy itself. Key questions ignored in such research are made ex-
plicit in this paper: why should the Ahmadiyya be excluded in this unusual
fashion rather than other “deviant” Muslim communities, what is the signifi-
cance of the state ban on Ahmadi use of “Islamic” symbols (such as “mosque,”
“azān” [call to prayer], or shahāda, the Islamic declaration of faith), and what does
it take for “heresy” to become a real category of state-sanctioned exclusion?
To appreciate the difference between heterodoxy and heresy, it is worth
highlighting that theological deviance is inherently different from state-
sanctioned exclusion. The former may lead to social ostracizing, boycotts, and so
on, which many Ahmadis also experience around the world. But a declaration of
heresy authorized by a state carries another kind of weight. In the case of the
Ahmadiyya, it allowed official discrimination and encouraged further popular vi-
olence. “Heresy” became a real category of social reality in Pakistan and a legiti-
mate justification for exclusion. It is thus important to ask how this happened,
and whether we can export that understanding to other cases.
By undertaking a qualitative discourse analysis of the recently declassified
transcript of parliamentary discussion on this amendment, the paper shows how
a specific, historical context of crisis led to an unusual discursive space in which
three levels of heterodoxy combined to result in a declaration of heresy. These
insights help make a contribution to the still-nascent application of sociological
frameworks to the study of religious heresy (Berlinerblau 2001; Kurtz 1983; Zito
1983) by tying together symbolic and physical persecution. They also allow us to
export lessons from the domain of sociology of religion to the general sociological
concept of relationality as expressed in Bourdieu’s schema of heterodoxy and or-
thodoxy. As Wuthnow (2014:599) notes, “domain-specific concepts . . . force
modifications of general concepts” that may then be exported to other empirical
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 3
cases within the same domain (other instance of heresy) or to other domains (for
instance, science studies, which also often examine heresy backed by authorita-
tive exclusion). This paper presents Bourdieu’s theoretical framework of doxa
and discourse, paying attention to the advantages of this framework as well as to
some of its gaps and how they may be addressed for this analysis. The primary
data and methodological approach are briefly discussed before turning to an in-
troduction to Ahmadiyyat, the background and international context to the
1974 amendment, and some important Ahmadi practices. Qualitative analysis of
the data show how theological and political doxic elements erupted into dis-
course, and how the discourse led to institutionalization of orthodoxy. These

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

findings are discussed with an emphasis on how emergent orthodoxy involves in-
stitutional continuity to target the Ahmadis as well as other religious “hetero-
dox” in Pakistan. Finally, by way of conclusion, I suggest this research could
stimulate other analyses and export these lessons to other empirical examinations
of heresy.

SAYING THE UNSAID: HERESY AND BOURDIEU’S DOXIC

SCHEMA

In most research, heresy (from the Greek hairesis, meaning choice) is generally
taken in its dictionary sense as an “opinion or doctrine at variance with the or-
thodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system; or, the
maintaining of such an opinion or doctrine” (Collins English Dictionary 2012).
Studies into heresy tend, by default, to look for orthodoxy as the pre-given norm
against which heterodoxy may be assessed. However, heretical views have often
emerged before dogma was strictly codified, as Max Weber realized and described
in his account of Hindu Veda evolution in response to heretical doctrines (Weber
1978:459; see also Henderson 1998). Looking for deviance in doctrines also leads
us to overlook communities whose practices are seen as heterodox, even if their
doctrinal differences could be theologically tolerated.

Doxa and Discourse

Moving toward a more practice-oriented social theory of heresy, this paper
draws on Pierre Bourdieu. In An Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu drew on
Husserl’s early recovery of the ancient Greek word doxa (opinion), but he dis-
tanced himself from both phenomenological explorations (Bourdieu 1977:168,
233 n.15) and post-Marxist theorization of “ideology” (Eagleton 1992). Contrary
to the over-cognitive emphasis of both, for Bourdieu, doxa refers to “pre-reflexive
intuitive knowledge shaped by experience, to unconscious inherited physical and
relational predispositions” (Deer 2008:120). As extra-cognitive, it is lived and
practical, evident only when ordinary life expressed in symbols and rituals is rup-
tured, and is hence “a set of fundamental beliefs which does not even need to
be asserted in the form of an explicit, self-conscious dogma” (Bourdieu 2000
4 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

[1997]:16). This emphasis on the universe of the unsaid allows analytical atten-
tion on practices in addition to doctrines.
As Bourdieu suggests, doxa is best conceptualized in contrast with discourse,
i.e., that which is argued or discussed, or the field of opinion. Where discourse is
cognitively determined, doxa is embodied, lived, and assumed. Doxa is where
“what is essential goes without saying because it comes without saying,” constituting
that part of tradition which is silent, “not least about itself as a tradition”
(Bourdieu 1977:167, emphasis original). Where discourse is ruled by majority,
doxa is characterized by unanimity (1977:168). And, finally, where discourse is
possible to delineate, doxa is indeterminate, more akin to a negative space only

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

recognized when new doxic elements emerge into cognitive discourse.
Bourdieu links doxic eruption into discourse to moments of crises. In these
moments, the doxic boundary is questioned and pushed back in a space of ex-
traordinary discourse by “heterodoxy.” A choice to question the arbitrariness of
the political order brings that order out from the universe of unasked assumption
and into opinion-ruled discourse. For Bourdieu, dominant groups then undertake
the conscious activity of codifying doxic elements into “orthodoxy, straight, or
rather straightened opinion . . . that exists only in the objective relationship which
opposes it to heterodoxy” (Bourdieu 1977:169, emphasis original). Orthodoxy,
then, develops largely in response to heterodox questioning of the unsaid.
Bourdieu’s idea of “symbolic capital” is also relevant here as a social resource
encapsulating features such as honor, dignity, and standing of an individual or
group (Wacquant 2007). For Bourdieu, symbolic capital is part of a competitive
symbolic economy, can be analyzed in economistic terms, and is “readily con-
vertible back into economic capital” (Bourdieu 1977:179). Struggles over sym-
bolic capital, including in the field of religion, constantly change its valuation,
and, consequently, its use as a political resource. From this perspective, heresy
cannot be explained entirely as manifested reaction to materialist oppression.
The Ahmadi hereticization certainly cannot be cast in this materialist light, and
its community members cannot in general be classified on common socioeco-
nomic or ethnic markers prevalent in Pakistani society. On the other hand, the
symbolic capital at stake in the Ahmadi case is also translatable into political
economy, including profits, positions, and patronage. It is, in that sense, as real as
any materialist resource. Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital is useful here as
it “transcends the classic idealism/materialism bipolarity by proposing a material-
ist yet non-reductive account of cultural life” (Swartz 1996:72).
As Bourdieu points out, there are “symbolic struggles over the power to
produce and to impose the legitimate vision of the world,” to create “visions of
division . . . through the words used to designate or to describe individuals,
groups or institutions” (Bourdieu 1989:20 – 23). Bourdieu was attentive to the
importance of the state as “holder of the monopoly over legitimate symbolic vio-
lence” (Bourdieu 1989:22). However, he hardly attended to the outcomes of
such struggles where the ability to define classifications was backed by the ability
to enforce them. Of course, Bourdieu realized that institutionalized/formal
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 5
authority is not necessary to impose a norm or to include/exclude members from
a group. Informal authorities can be equally effective in delimiting the field
through, for example, knowledge legitimation. Yet, when the state’s political
power is involved, heterodoxy becomes an official social category that carries
consequences fundamentally different from ostracism or other civic results of
exclusion.
Bourdieu’s doxic schema may be illustrated as follows (Figure 1).

Tuning Bourdieu: Adjustments to the Doxic Schema to Understand Ahmadi

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Hereticization
In general, there has been little application of Bourdieu’s cultural sociology
to the study of religion (for two exceptions, see Swartz [1996] on the theoretical
relevance of “fields” and Verter [2003] on “symbolic capital”). There are some
good reasons for this neglect. Bourdieu’s concept of doxa is intriguing in its flexi-
bility yet exasperating in its vagueness. Also, Bourdieu rarely applied his concept
of doxa to religion, focusing instead on profane realms such as academia (e.g.,
Bourdieu 1988).
A stronger concentration on religion might have softened Bourdieu’s over-
polarized criticism of Husserl’s cognitivism. Myles (2004) points out that Bourdieu
drew the concept from Husserl’s early writings, but he exaggerated it to emphasize
the embodied “universe of practice” as opposed to cognitive “knowledge.” Useful
as this is, Myles shows how the distinction between doxa and discourse is not so
clear-cut, even in Bourdieu’s own anthropological account of the Kabylia. Going

FIGURE 1. Bourdieu’s schema of doxa (adapted from Bourdieu 1977:168).

6 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

back to the phenomenological concept, Myles (2004:99) notes that “Husserl dis-
tinguishes an elementary ‘protodoxa’ (or ‘urdoxa’) from more developed cogni-
tive modes of ‘judgement’ and ‘predictiveness’ but between these are a number of
other states of consciousness.” That is, doxa does not appear in discourse ex
nihilo: it draws on existing (if eclipsed) cognitive knowledge, even though its pe-
culiar formulation is unique in those particular objective conditions.
A feature of doxic eruption by crisis is the construction of primordial authen-
ticity, by both orthodoxy and heterodoxy, constructing historical narratives to
support the respective claim. If orthodoxy and heresy are two poles of religious
categorization, then shades of heterodoxy in between must also be accounted

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

for. Bourdieu never appears to have resolved the grades of distinction between
orthodoxy and heresy. Drawing on Simmel’s analysis of the stranger, Kurtz
(1983:1087) argued that, “heresy refers to an intense union of both nearness and
remoteness.” Bourdieu’s lack of attention to religion meant that he overlooked
how critical this distinction becomes when differentiating religious deviance
that is acceptable to the wider community from that which is not. This becomes
relevant here since Bourdieu largely ignored the role of the state when it came to
religion.
Finally, once orthodoxy develops and institutionalizes in response to an un-
acceptable deviance, it becomes all the more active in seeking out and excluding
presently “acceptable” deviance. Bourdieu’s concept of doxa in itself would be
difficult to use in response to this study’s question regarding the future of the
Ahmadiyya and other heterodox in Pakistan. By unpacking the relationality of
orthodoxy and heresy to include additional heterodoxies, we gain the ability
to extend the analysis beyond one instance of hereticization. This is where
Bourdieu’s ignoring the state is crucial. In the Muslim world, in particular, the
very evolution of the postcolonial nation-state was entwined with religious insti-
tutions. Muslim-majority states typically harness the popular legitimacy of reli-
gious institutions (Driessen 2014) and fuse religion with national identity and
public norms (Cesari 2014). State regulation and sanctioning must be accounted
for if we are to make sense of religious behavior.
These adjustments to Bourdieu’s doxic schema are represented below to indi-
cate a revised framework for analyzing the constitutional declaration of heresy
against Ahmadis in Pakistan (Figure 2).

DATA AND METHODS

To foreground the actual moment of hereticization, I study the recently de-

classified transcript of the parliamentary proceedings of 1974 discussing the
second constitutional amendment to declare the Ahmadiyya heretics (Pakistan
1974). The proceedings have been kept secret “in the national interest” and were
declassified on legal petition only in 2010 (Hamdani 2012). The transcript, now
in the public domain, is extensive: 21 volumes with over 3,000 pages, mostly in
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 7
FIGURE 2. Revised doxic schema (adapted from Bourdieu 1977:168).

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Urdu. Yet, there is no debate that is evident in the transcript as there is not one
dissenting voice recorded from any member. The committee summoned the
leader of the Ahmadiyya (Mirza Nasir Ahmad) and a witness for the Lahori
group to defend their claims to be called “Muslims.” The first 13 volumes of the
record of the committee read like a court hearing with a “cross-examination” of
“witnesses” by the Attorney General of Pakistan, while the last eight volumes
comprise statements by committee members and other evidence. While full texts
of court judgments and statements by theologians are included in favor of declar-
ing Ahmadis heretics, Mirza Nasir Ahmad’s written statement (M. N. Ahmad
2003) is excluded from the official record.
The nature of this research object required a micro qualitative approach
(Spickard 2007). More specifically, I employed qualitative discourse analysis
(Perelman 1982; Wood and Kroger 2000) with particular attention to the fact
that this is a performative text (creating future actions) rather than a narrative
reporting (of past actions). In line with the social constructionist perspective
adopted here, such analysis seeks to unpack discourse as “an institutionalized way
of thinking, embedded in language, that shapes people’s thoughts and behaviors”
(Spickard 2007:132). Qualitative discourse analysis offers an opportunity to
unmask patterns that stand behind a text: how power shapes the language we use
and how language informs power structures. In particular, justifications for an
action are most often rhetorically built on naturalized assumptions. In this respect,
this is an ideal approach to understanding how heterodoxy was turned into heresy
with “real-world” consequences.
8 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

I analyzed the text for patterns that reveal power relations, which are often so
naturalized that they are assumed as self-evident. In my analysis, I paid special
attention to justifications for or against a declaration of heresy against the
Ahmadiyya. Therefore, I did not begin with predefined categories whose frequen-
cy I tested in the data corpus; rather, I first examined the context of the data to
uncover what kinds of events constituted this particular form of speech. Next, I
searched the entire corpus to identify argumentation patterns for and against the
hereticization. Following fundamental principles of qualitative social research,
the idea was to build a broad enough categorization that captured the variations
in arguments (Strauss 1987). In reporting the results below, I illustrate these vari-

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

ations by quotations from the data.

AHMADIYYAT

Ahmadiyyat was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889 as an Islamic

reform movement in the town of Qadian in British-ruled Punjab, now in India.
The movement quickly became controversial in the subcontinent mainly due to
Mirza Ahmad’s claim to “prophethood,” allegedly violating a deeply held belief
among Muslims that Muhammad was the last of the prophets sent by God. The
Ahmadi response to this rests on a subtle point that has been surveyed excellent-
ly by Friedmann (2003) and others.1 Briefly, the response rests on differences in
interpretation of the Quranic reference (33:40) to Muhammad as “khātim al-
nabiyyı̄n” [final prophet] and of a famous hadı̄th [oral tradition] of the Prophet
referring to himself as the “seal of the prophets.”2 The common interpretation
emphasizes the sense of the term khātim as temporal finality, viz. that Muhammad
was the temporally last in a succession of prophets sent by Allah and, concomitantly,
that prophecy was sealed in time after his death in AD 632.3 Ahmadis interpret
the same term as emphasizing logical finality, khātim as ultimate and, thus, that
Muhammad awards the final “seal,” or guarantee of authenticity, to perfect all
prophecies. These are taken to include later “minor” (non-law-bearing) prophecies
reflected in the glory of Muhammad, who is the temporally and logically ultimate
law-bearing prophet. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad based his claim on a long-standing mys-
tical tradition of fina-fi-il-Rusool [negation of one’s identity in that of the Prophet].4

1
See also Valentine (2008:ch. 6, ch. 9). An informative Ahmadi response is also includ-
ed in testimony in the South African Supreme Court Case decided 1985 (Aziz 1987).
2
Al-Bukhārı̄, Sahı̄h, Kitāb al-manāqib 18 (vol. 2, page 390).
3
This view is amplified in Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, in which the root word
“khatm” is strictly ambiguous but in common parlance often connotes “final” as “last.” Sunni
Muslims stress temporal finality more than Shi’a; the latter defend temporal finality of proph-
ethood equally, but allow for ongoing guidance by imams, even infallible ones.
4
This is a traditional Sufi goal of mystical union. Abu Yazid Bustami (d. 874), Abu Bakr
Shibli (d. 945), Syed Abdul Qadir Jilani (d. 1166), Khwaja Mu’innuddin Chisti (d. 1236),
and Farid Ganj Shakar (d. 1265) are just some saints who made similar ecstatic pronounce-
ments. For a thorough account, see the testimony in Aziz (1987:129– 53).
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 9
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to reflected prophethood is only one aspect of
his prolific message. He also referred to himself as the mujaddid [reformer] of the
century, drawing on a tradition that a reformer of the religion would appear every
100 years, and as muhaddath [one to whom God speaks]. Also among his many
writings are frequent references to Jihad-e-Akbar [Greatest Holy War] as being
the fight of believers against their inner demons, and to military battle against
nonbelievers as being only the “Smallest Jihad.”
A key element of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s mission was the practice of bay’t
[initiation] with him as spiritual leader. The act of bay’t makes an Ahmadi, and
this practice has carried on after his death with a continuation of leaders of the

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Ahmadi community. The bay’t is a singularly esoteric act bringing a believer into
relationship with a guide on the path of spiritual enlightenment. Literally trans-
lated from Arabic as “to sell,” the Islamic practice of bay’t is an oath of allegiance
by “selling” one’s self in exchange for the spiritual guidance given by an Imam or
spiritual leader. The tradition can be traced back to Muhammad who accepted
bay’t of new converts to Islam as an oath of allegiance. When considered from
this perspective, it is obvious that bay’t transfers religious authority—and associ-
ated symbolic capital—out of the hands of clerical and state officials and into the
hands of communal spiritual guides. In many ways, such local guides challenge
the basis of the sociopolitical order of state and clerics: they are diffuse and not
centralized, they are disorganized and not hierarchically related, they have indi-
vidual relationships with Muslims rather than mediating doctrine, and they rely
on “irrational” practices rather than rational scholarship. It is not surprising
that bay’t is devalued, if not rejected outright, by doctrinaire orthodoxy. The
Ahmadiyya hold a bay’t ceremony during the annual gathering of the community
in the UK when the Ahmadi Caliph of the time takes the oath of initiation
from new converts (although there are also other national, and now televised,
gatherings).
Who can accept bay’t became an issue after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s death in
1908 when a smaller organization known as the “Lahori group” split from the
main body of the Ahmadiyya, partly on theological differences about the exact
nature of Mirza Ahmad’s prophecy and how it was to be continued. Other differenc-
es between the groups were strategic: Ahmadi comportment toward non-Ahmadi
Muslims, and organization of the community after Mirza Ahmad’s death.
Many of these practices may be considered heterodox from the construction
of mainstream Sunnism in Pakistan. But their practices cannot explain of them-
selves why the Ahmadis should be declared heretics in this unusual fashion over
any other group that may even be more ideologically “deviant” from the Sunni
majority norm in Pakistan or materially more marginal. There are numerous ex-
amples of deviance from around the world, but staying with South Asian Islam,
the Zikris originating in Balochistan are notable. The Zikris follow Sunni Hanafi
Islamic doctrines while emphasizing the classical and common Sunni orthodox
practice of zikr, or remembrance of God. Most Sunni clergy in Pakistan and else-
where see some practices in such zikr sessions, particularly those involving women,
10 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

as heterodox, yet the community has never been officially labeled heretics
(D. S. Ahmed 2002; Malik 2002:11 –12).

Backdrop to Ahmadi Persecution

Although religious clerics challenged Ahmadiyyat since 1890, popular and
political opinion in the early days was not all hostile to Ahmadis. The Indian
Muslim League leader and founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, declared
that all those calling themselves “Muslims” would be treated as such in the new
Islamic nation and, specifically, that Ahmadis were to be considered Muslims for
that purpose (e.g., in a statement in Srinagar, Kashmir on May 23, 1944). After

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Pakistan was formed in 1947, the Ahmadiyya leader at the time, Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad’s son, led the community out of its birthplace in Indian Qadian to
Lahore in Pakistan, and shortly thereafter to a new city on land purchased nearby
by the Ahmadiyya. The new “Islamic” republic of Pakistan gave space to chal-
lenge religious claims, and in 1949, the militant Deobandi Sunni organization
Ahrar mobilized its decades-old demand that Ahmadis be officially declared here-
tics. Some years after the Ahrar demand was unsuccessful, demonstrations in
Lahore were organized by Jama’at-e-Islami, the leading Islamist political party,
and these quickly became violent. The Lahore Riots of 1953 involved looting,
arson, and murder of at least 200 Ahmadis, which eventually required three
months of martial law over the city to be brought under control.
The crisis was revived under the rule of Prime Minister Bhutto. Violence
burst out once more in May 1974, with mass murder of Ahmadis and destruction
of their properties across the country. Religious parties again demanded that the
state hereticize the Ahmadiyya. The prime minister responded by convening a
special committee comprising the whole parliament on June 30, 1974, to make a
recommendation on the Ahmadiyya “issue.”
Of course, the new crisis was not an isolated event. The earlier violence
of 1953 had been simmering, alongside the ongoing persecution of Ahmadis.
Lawmakers in 1974 (who had just drafted a new constitution the previous year)
were conscious of this, and of the fact that the opportunity to hereticize the
Ahmadiyya then had been missed—a point they made repeatedly in the 1974
debate. Furthermore, just a few years earlier in 1971, the Pakistani state had un-
dergone an identity crisis. When denied its majority Bangla-speaking leader in
the national elections, East Pakistan had seceded from Pakistan after months of
bloodshed to become the new state of Bangladesh. This inherently challenged
the Pakistani state’s identity as a homeland for Muslims in the subcontinent,
prompting increasing pressure for “Islamization” to maintain the very rationale
for Pakistan. As a result the country’s first constitutional amendment of 1973 was to
add “Islamic” to the country’s official name “Republic of Pakistan,” indicating the
ambivalent notion of religion and statehood in Pakistan (I. Ahmed 2010; Khan
2012). Finally, 1974 was a significant year for the Muslim world. Pakistan’s prime
minister hosted the second summit of the Organization of Islamic Countries in
February, effectively launching the OIC. Two months later, in April 1974, the
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 11
Muslim World League (an international nongovernmental organization) held its
annual convention in Saudi Arabia where 140 Muslim delegations passed a unani-
mous resolution declaring the Ahmadis non-Muslims. Although not legally binding,
the declaration added significant momentum to the other factors in forming the
context for the Pakistani committee of the whole parliament in August 1974.

The Second Constitutional Amendment and beyond

Committee proceedings were held in-camera (no public gallery and confi-
dential transcripts) from August 5 to September 7. The committee delivered a

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

unanimous recommendation on September 7, 1974, for a constitutional amend-
ment to declare Ahmadis non-Muslims, and the National Assembly and Senate
approved it unanimously the same day. The Second Constitutional Amendment
of Pakistan declared the Ahmadiyya be treated as non-Muslim minorities under
law, invalidating Ahmadi claims to be Muslims. Informal persecution of the
Ahmadiyya continued until, in 1984, the military President Zia-ul-Haq promul-
gated an Ordinance5 declaring most Ahmadi activities to be criminal offences.
As a result, Ahmadis were barred from calling themselves Muslim, praying or
preaching in the name of Islam, and exhibiting Islamic religiosity publicly—for
example displaying Islamic symbols or Quranic verses, distributing Islamic litera-
ture, using the kalimah, and calling their places of worship “mosques” (Friedmann
2003:xiii –xv; Mahmud 1995; Saeed 2007; Siddiq 1995; Valentine 2008). Those
accused of “posing” as Muslims can be charged with blasphemy, which, under
Pakistani law of the same time, is maximally punishable by death. This has fed
waves of public violence against Ahmadis, apparently condoned by religious au-
thorities and even by state officials (Al-Islam 2013; Idris 2008; Tanveer 2013;
Yusuf 2012). The symbolic violence also led to structural discrimination: Ahmadis
were not only barred from holding the office of President or Prime Minister, but
were also forced to vote in elections only for reserved minority seats, along with
other non-Muslim minority populations in Pakistan. Being avowedly Muslim, the
community boycotted this categorization, leading to their disenfranchisement
(electoral changes in 2002 have not changed this situation; see Amir 2002;
Sultana 2014).
The amendment also left Ahmadis open to the persecution that non-
Muslims in Pakistan routinely face (Ahmad 2012; Mahmud 1995; Malik 2002).
A decade later, the so-called Blasphemy Laws effectively made the everyday reli-
gious practice of Ahmadis illegal and subject to a death penalty (Friedmann
2003:xiii –xv; Valentine 2008:230). This has led to unprecedented structural dis-
crimination and popular persecution of the approximately five million Ahmadis
still in Pakistan. Many Ahmadis emigrated from Pakistan, including their spiritu-
al and organizational head [Caliph], and at least five million now live elsewhere.

5
“Anti-Islamic Activities of the Qadiani Group, Lahori Group and Ahmadis (Prohi-
bition and Punishment) Ordinance, 1984.”
12 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

DOXA TO DISCOURSE TO ORTHODOXY IN 1974

The proceedings of the special committee obviously constitute an extraordi-

nary space of discourse. It was a field battle over proto-typical symbolic capital:
naming who is and is not a Muslim and, therefore, who has proprietary rights
over the use of symbols generally regarded as Islamic. This is a symbolic field in
Bourdieu’s sense of being a distinct arena “where specific forms of capital are pro-
duced, invested, exchanged, and accumulated” (Swartz 1996:78). From this per-
spective, symbolic violence is not incidental to the 1974 declaration of heresy
against the Ahmadiyya; it is the crux of the matter.

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

The most striking feature of the symbolic struggle is that rationales to declare
Ahmadis heretics are not restricted to their doctrinal deviance. The question of
why Ahmadis, in particular, should be singled out for official hereticization in
Pakistan hinges on more than theological difference. In fact, the unusual dis-
course established three levels of heterodoxy of the Ahmadiyya: (a) theological
(finality of prophethood), (b) political (institutional competence to deal with reli-
gious views), and (c) humanist (the role of international norms in national law).
Before discussing these, it is worth commenting briefly on the fact that the tran-
script contains no dissenting voice on the amendment. Not one parliamentarian
opposed the amendment. However, the absence of contesting views does not
mean that there was no political field struggle. Rather, the parliamentarians
debated the nature of the amendment in line with particular interests and to
protect against any potential challenges to their authority.

Religious Heterodoxy: Finality of Prophethood

The finality of prophethood in Islam is obviously one doxic element that
erupted into popular and political discourse in 1974. This theological issue pre-
dates the Ahmadiyya. As Friedmann (2003) shows, despite popular opinion
today, temporal finality of prophethood was never the only interpretation in
Islamic scholarship nor was it necessarily the earliest, and “there was no unanimi-
ty in the understanding of the phrase khātim al-nabiyyı̄n in the early centuries of
Islam” (2003:64).6 Numerous individuals are reported to have claimed prophet-
hood throughout Islamic history, but an evolving Sunni doctrine roundly reject-
ed such claims or their acceptance. Over time, this has translated into further
distance from the Shi’a (who believe in a spiritual, albeit nonprophetic, lineage
after Muhammad) and related sects who believe in a continuation of nonpro-
phetic spiritual guidance for humanity in all ages (like the Ismail’is). In this case,
the emergent orthodoxy expressly united Shia and Sunni elements against the

6
Friedmann (2003:56–59) points out four instances of early (ninth to tenth century) com-
mentaries that allow for prophethood after Muhammad, including traditions related to
Muhammad’s son who died in infancy. Drawing on Goldziher’s (1971) Muslim Studies,
Friedmann suggests that emphasis on temporal finality might well have been “part of an
anti-Shi’i trend designed to undermine the hereditary character of spiritual dignity” (2003:61).
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 13
Ahmadiyya. For example, interrupting a member’s speech, the Speaker of the
National Assembly said:

Our discussion should be confined to the Resolution before us; not that one is Sunni and one is
Shia. We should not talk against any sect. That is not relevant. . . . We are not here to throw
mud at each other; the only thing is to declare a minority. (Committee Chairman, Pakistan
1974:2710)

The Ahmadi challenge to the theological field drew on its own tradition of
authenticity, citing interpretations from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Islamic

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

scholarship that supported the Ahmadi claim. In 1974, the heterodoxy erupted
into public display as a challenge to the common notion of temporal finality of
prophethood in Islam and hence to the (Sunni-dominated) sociopolitical order
that sustains it.
Openly in the field of discourse, the heterodox challenge is debated for the first
time publicly in 1974 as a matter that can be argued “rationally,” decided legally, and
applied universally. The violent crisis in the summer of 1974 in Pakistan is referred
to numerous times by parliamentarians in the proceedings as justifying a “final” reso-
lution of this matter. For instance: “At this time we have reached such a sensitive
juncture that the eyes of the whole world are on us, the eyes of Muslim countries are
on us, all Muslim governments and Arab governments are looking at us and waiting
for our decision” (MP Ch. Ghaus Hazarvi, Pakistan 1974:2836). (This presumed uni-
versalism is at odds with the national exceptionalism relied on; see below.)
Once taken out of the hands of God on Judgment Day and put into the hands
of parliamentarians here and now, the matter becomes subject to the appropriate
rules of discourse: rationality and majority of opinion. The leader of the parliamen-
tary charge against the Ahmadiyya, Mufti Mahmood, draws on a sample of fat’awa
[clerical judgments] to argue that the “entire Muslim world” is of the opinion that
Ahmadis are heretics and that this is a decisive factor (Pakistan 1974:1969–74).
On the other side, Mirza Nasir Ahmad points out in his opening statement
(Mahzarnama [Memorandum])7 that this sort of step stemming from sectarian riots
is unprecedented and would require that all sectarian riots be treated likewise:

If the majority of the members of an Assembly is empowered to decide upon the religion of any
sect or denomination merely by virtue of the fact that they constitute the majority, then such a
view will also be untenable on the basis of reason, and contrary to human nature and religious
conscience. (M. N. Ahmad 2003:4)

As a result of the doxic eruption into discourse, a certain Sunni orthodoxy

comes to be defined in the 1974 proceedings in a contradictory relationship with
the Ahmadi heterodoxy. The orthodox expression is that an individual can only

7
This was an integral part of the proceedings, distributed to members but also published
separately in Urdu and English by the Ahmadi community. However, it was not included in
the final printing of the proceedings as declassified in 2010.
14 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

be called “Muslim” if s/he acknowledges the finality of prophethood, and that this
must be taken as literal and temporal, allowing no alternative interpretations.8
The transcript includes some theological debate. However, a large portion
of the discussion has to do with practices. The Attorney General and other
members repeatedly emphasize Ahmadis not joining in prayers at “Muslim” fu-
nerals (e.g., Pakistan 1974:239, 367) and not allowing Ahmadi women to marry
non-Ahmadis (Pakistan 1974:220 – 21). Similarly, Ahmadi doctrine of Inner
Jihad goes theologically unchallenged. However, the parliamentarians repeatedly
criticize the Ahmadi practice of refusing armed resistance against colonial rulers
and apparently supporting the British against the Ottoman Caliphate. Similarly,

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

the Attorney General spends considerable time questioning M. N. Ahmad as to
the numbers of Ahmadis in the country and worldwide, and about average
numbers of annual conversion (e.g., Pakistan 1974:18 – 19, 28– 35, 116 –18).
M. N. Ahmad contends that he has no such statistics since Ahmadiyyat is a
matter of taking bay’t, which is not always recorded, and because an Ahmadi can
leave bay’t at any time.
By virtue of being argued rationally in the public sphere, the new discursive
element of “normal” Muslim belief and practices is also institutionalized. Such
institutions are already promoted in the 1974 proceedings, indicating a felt sense
of protecting the institutionalized and codified orthodoxy:

Appropriate legislative and executive measures should be taken so that the danger of foreign influ-
ence adversely affecting the interest of the State of Pakistan, arising out of the organization and
membership of Ahmadiyya Missions in foreign countries would be effectively safeguarded
against. . . . Government should set up an organization whose duty it should be to propagate
the basic articles of the faith of Islam, particularly the concept of Finality of Prophethood.
(MP Malik M. Jafar, Pakistan 1974:2663 –67)

The 1984 blasphemy laws and their application ( primarily against Christians
and Ahmadis) did provide this continuity.9 They established an expanding for-
tress to protect against future heresies on temporal finality of prophethood and
have been used also to promote persecution of Shi’a sects like the Ismailis. These
sects might never be declared heretical, but the public discourse succeeds in es-
tablishing a wide frontier of orthodox opinion to protect the existing censorship
of Ahmadis.

8
There has been no discussion on how this would affect the status of saints in Islamic
history, including those revered in Pakistan, who made similar proclamations (see footnote 6).
9
Some antiblasphemy laws existed in British colonial India, and Pakistan adopted more
in 1953. Up until 1986, courts heard eight blasphemy cases. Recent reports suggest that
courts have heard up to 1,335 cases between 1987 and 2012, although the figure may be more
(Asia 2014). A 2011 Pew poll showed that 75 percent of Pakistanis supported the blasphemy
laws (Sahgal 2013). The same poll showed that about half of Pakistanis now believe that
Shias are not Muslim, as opposed to 14 percent of Afghanis holding that opinion (Bell
2012:88).
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 15
Political movements to “defend” the finality of prophethood only came into
existence after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to prophethood. For instance, the
Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam (or Ahrar), which first raised the matter of Ahmadi here-
ticization in Pakistan in 1949 and was active in the 1974 riots, was itself founded
in 1929 to counter the growing presence of Ahmadis in British India. The
Tehreek-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwwat [Movement to Protect the Finality of Prophethood]
had also been founded in 1889 precisely to counter and contest Ahmadi claims.
One of the movement’s leaders, Mufti Mahmood, was the primary draftsman of the
statement against Ahmadis in 1974, shortly after he had been chief minister of a
Pakistani province. Mufti Mahmood’s political career after 1974 built on his suc-

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

cessful rhetoric against Ahmadis. Even the fat’awa that he and others draw upon in
the proceedings are given specifically in opposition to Ahmadiyyat, although of
course there are also some religious judgments on temporal finality of prophethood
before the nineteenth century. However, the understanding of finality of prophet-
hood as temporal came to be institutionalized in Pakistan only after 1974. The
violent popular reaction to the Danish cartoons incident in Pakistan (e.g., Blom
2008), as well as their apparent endorsement by the state, may also be understood in
this light. Eventually, a nongovernmental organization now called the International
Council for the Defense of Finality of Prophethood came into existence to police
the Ahmadis. Pakistani members and politicians play a central role in this interna-
tional body, and the group received active police support in desecrating Ahmadi
graves, disfiguring shops, and burning literature (T. Ahmad 2012).

Political Heterodoxy: Authority of the Nation-State

The second order of heterodoxy opened in the field is that of political legiti-
mation. The Attorney General repeatedly seeks to vest authority with the parlia-
ment to decide on whether a community may or may not be called Islamic (e.g.,
Pakistan 1974:37 – 41, 96 –98, 122– 24). This is not only with respect to the
amendment at hand but also as a principled matter. For instance, he suggests that
the state is empowered to investigate the “true” religion of an individual as
opposed to the one he may profess when it comes to religious minority quotas
or preventing non-Muslims from entering Mecca (Pakistan 1974:44 –52, 95).
Numerous statements by the parliamentarians reinforce this point. For example:

You [M.N.Ahmad] have criticized extensively the authority of the Assembly [ parliament], but
you should know that the Assembly is the representative body of the nation. It has to represent
the nation. When the nation has a unanimous demand, it becomes the demand of the Assembly
itself and enters the domain and duty of the Assembly . . . so how can the National Assembly,
whose duty is law-making, not have the authority to expose the false claims of the Mirzai’s and
save the nation from their fraud. (MP Maulana Abdul Hakim, Pakistan 1974:2352 – 53)

The sense of nationhood developed in the discourse includes sovereignty

achieved by armed struggle against “infidel” (colonial) rule, and hence the ardent
opposition to the Ahmadi view on inner Great Jihad (e.g., Pakistan 1974:2718,
2744, 2829, 2912, 2622).
16 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

M. N. Ahmad repeatedly contests this. The heterodox choice made by the

Ahmadis is that governing officials have neither the competence nor the authori-
ty to declare what may or may not be Muslim:

[A]s far as conducting the day to day affairs of this world is concerned, no individual or denomi-
nation can be empowered to expel an individual or a sect from the larger corpus of Islam. It is a
matter between a human being and God, and it can only be resolved on the Day of Judgement.
(M. N. Ahmad 2003:19)

The Ahmadi choice is to question the assumption that state and religion are

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

entwined, even in a country ostensibly founded for Muslims.
That is, M. N. Ahmad argues for a principled separation of religion and poli-
tics, and not just in this case.10 In order to clarify his claim, M. N. Ahmad distin-
guishes between political and theological senses of being Muslim (e.g., Pakistan
1974:149 –51). He argues that the former is confirmed by virtue of self-
declaration: she who calls herself a Muslim is a Muslim, and no other person or
group of people can contest this. The latter is confirmed by God and, again, no
person or group of people can enter into that judgment. Furthermore, M. N.
Ahmad’s statements highlight the positionality, as opposed to neutrality, of reli-
gious scholars and experts on whom the parliament relies. In the process of op-
posing this choice, the orthodox position congeals over the proceedings into a
more or less definite statement that such distinctions will not be sustained, and
that the state has the right to investigate the nature of belief of any citizen.
The right of the state to define who can legitimately use Islamic symbols is
brought out from amorphous background understanding into a codified, cognitive
rule in the 1974 proceedings. Future application of this opinion is already sensed,
as evident from the closing speech of the Law Minister:

When this question arose soon after the 29th of May, no one could even have remotely imagined
that this august body would be burdened with the onerous task of resolving a highly complicated
and intricate issue involving religious sentiments of millions of Muslims in the Sub-continent and
all over the world. Today, it is the victory of democracy and the democratic institutions and dem-
ocratic norms and traditions. (Abdul H. Pirzada, Pakistan 1974:3072 – 73)

This cognitive opinion later enabled military President Zia-ul-Haq to pass

the 1984 Ordinance—the set of legislation collectively known as “blasphemy”
laws. The Ordinance detailed activities prohibited by Ahmadis and defined pun-
ishments for the accused of life imprisonment or death (the former was struck
down subsequently by the Federal Shari’at Court). The ordinance practically
allowed persecution of Ahmadis and legal cover for those violating Ahmadi life
and property (Valentine 2008:230).

10
This argument illustrates Bourdieu’s point that one strategy actors use is to critique the
seemingly accepted rules of the field, or even the field itself, to gain strategic advantage.
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 17
Humanist Heterodoxy: Applicability of Religious Rights
The third heterodox claim of the Ahmadiyya in the proceedings is the
further choice that the Pakistani nation-state not be seen as bounded, closed,
and particular. In frequent references in the Mahzarnama and in the proceedings
(e.g., Pakistan 1974:38, 86, 88, 123 –25, 129), M. N. Ahmad refers to the 1948
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, especially the clauses related to
freedom of religion. His point is that parliamentary deliberation or decision on
such an amendment amounts to “contravention of basic human rights. . . . It
would violate the United Nations’ Charter of Human Rights” (Ahmad 2003:8).
By contrast, the Attorney General goes to lengths over the course of questioning

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

to establish that all international principles and agreements are subject to na-
tional particularity, giving numerous examples such as of Indian law forbidding
the slaughter of cows (Pakistan 1974:81), the United States forbidding polygamy
despite Mormon beliefs (Pakistan 1974:85–86), and Britain forbidding public
nudity despite “hippy” practices (Pakistan 1974:90). As he points out, “All these
examples were simply meant to show that freedom of religion, as given, is subject
to restrictions and it may be by law” (Pakistan 1974:95). The similar position of
parliamentarians is captured in the majority statement signed by parliamentarians:

This is the first and most basic difference between Mirza’is [Ahmadis] and Muslims. Muslims
only want to make their decisions in light of the Quran and Shari’a [Islamic law and moral
code]. And think of these themselves as the basis of life. But Mirza’is look to the United
Nations, sometimes to international organizations and sometimes to man-made constitutions
and law. (MP Maulvi Abdul Hakeem, Pakistan 1974:2349)

The emergent orthodox assumption is that “tradition” is a valid ground for

national particularism and exceptions to universals. The heterodox claim of
Ahmadis that this is not so clearly challenges the sociopolitical order. This fre-
quent argumentation is, of course, a discrepancy with a common justification
cited for entering this debate in the first place: that of international Islamic ex-
pectations for a “final” resolution, as seen above. It is not the purpose of this anal-
ysis to claim that such arguments against the universality of human or religious
rights were never broached before. However, the 1974 proceedings were the first
time that these were used as valid rationales in making a case for new legislation.
Using principles of trademark and intellectual property law, the rationale of
the Attorney General hinges on religion as a legal “brand” similar to that of a
company manufacturing soap (Pakistan 1974:76–78). Heterodoxy is equated with
a “person falsely trading in some one’s name” (Pakistan 1974:80). This matter
became central to the judgments against Ahmadis in at least two subsequent legal
cases.11 Once more, the 1974 proceedings institutionalized parliament as the deter-
minant of what can be considered exceptional in Pakistan, in contradiction with rights

11
M. Rehman v Government of Pakistan, 1985 (Khan 2003); and Zaheeruddin v State,
1993—where orthodox Islam was likened to Coca-Cola’s unique bottle design (Siddiq 1995).
18 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

generally deemed universal. This institutionalized step was justified by foreign legal
examples, setting a codified precedent that could be drawn upon later.
The state’s symbolic rights now included determination of a citizen’s religion,
reliance on particular forms of clerical authority in state affairs, and cognitive ar-
guments for punishment over “false” appropriation of Islamic symbols (leading
eventually to death for “blasphemy”). Ongoing persecution of the Ahmadiyya
centers on symbolic capital, with bans on the community’s literature and use
Islamic epithets or symbols. In September 2013, for instance, police tore down
towers at an Ahmadi place of worship (which cannot be called a “mosque”) since
they resembled minarets (Tanveer 2013). Likewise, Pakistani parliamentarians

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

have justified so-called honor killings of women by local community members in
the name of tradition (Correspondent 2010). As the UN Office for Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs reports on its web site:

A resolution condemning honour killings was proposed by a member of parliament, but according
to Jilani [human rights lawyer and activist], it was withdrawn. “The senate refused to debate the
resolution, with some members of parliament saying that it was part of our culture.” (IRIN 2003)

DISCUSSION

Kurtz (1983) was correct that heresy is marked by a haunting nearness yet re-
moteness from orthodoxy. However, this theological distance is a necessary but in-
sufficient condition for state-sanctioned exclusion of a religious community.
Qualitative discourse analysis of the 1974 parliamentary speeches in Pakistan reveals
that the interpretation of “finality” of Prophet Muhammad was a key trigger for the
censorship, but it was not the only one. The declaration of heresy must be seen as a
combination of three heterodoxies in the context of an unusual crisis of the state in
Pakistan: theological difference, the authority of the modern state structure (parlia-
ment and select clerics) to determine legitimate use of Islamic symbols, and the
particularity of a nation-state to draw on “tradition” as an exception to universal
principles such as of human rights. The latter heterodoxies were integral to the
state’s exclusion of the Ahmadiyya by creating an exceptional category of “heretics.”
Bourdieu’s idea that heterodoxy challenges the existing sociopolitical order is
borne out in the arguments used by parliamentarians to challenge these three
Ahmadi heterodoxies. As Bourdieu postulated, orthodoxy emerged as “straightened”
opinion from amorphous doxa. In each case, the position taken by M. N. Ahmad in
the proceedings pushed the doxic boundary to establish a challenge to the political
order. Again, the Ahmadiyya did not voice these challenges ex-nihilo; each argu-
ment by M. N. Ahmad was sustained by reference to sound tradition, so the line
between doxa and discourse is not quite as impermeable as Bourdieu depicted.
The field battle in 1974 was in large part about amassing symbolic capital to
legitimize the use of Islamic symbols. State involvement meant that emergent or-
thodox opinion was codified and institutionalized, hence sustaining control of
symbolic capital and changing the political field in which future actions take
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 19
place. But what Bourdieu overlooked was that the state’s involvement is crucial.
As Driessen (2014:375) shows, state regulation of religious behavior in the
Muslim world can criminalize sin by “closing off options for religious choice and
socializing children into a national religious identity.” The state was central to the
definition of a category of “heresy,” opening up structural and popular discrimina-
tion of the Ahmadiyya as well as other communities such as the Zikris or, increas-
ingly, Shias. Thus, for instance, over the past 40 years, at least two generations
have been schooled (by textbooks) and socialized into an un-reflexive belief that
Ahmadis are non-Muslims, compounded by Ahmadi “silence” since their response
is illegal. It remains crucial to further investigate to what extent communities and

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

networks of authority require the state to perform exclusionary actions of this
nature, and how the nature of the state makes a difference in such actions.
Bourdieu also proposed that orthodoxy as “straightened” opinion seeks a (im-
possible) return to the state of “innocence.” The 1974 proceedings built a primor-
dial authenticity of the majority in that the Assembly sought to equate Sunni
majority with doxic unanimity. But of course, this is never possible since what has
been said and argued can never be unsaid and un-debated. What Bourdieu’s
insight suggests, and the Ahmadi case supports, is that heresies lead to continuing
suppression to present the majority as unanimity. Once an assumption has become
a choice, moving from unanimity to majority, this opinion must be maintained
cognitively and with the strength of majority. Otherwise, its very rationale as con-
tradictory to the choice becomes questionable.

CONCLUSION

This paper illustrates the importance of shifts within the category of religion
in society by focusing on how heterodoxy becomes heresy. It argues that there
was nothing theologically or historically deterministic about why Ahmadi het-
erodoxy became a constitutional “heresy,” while other choices deviating from
Sunni clerical authority remain “heterodoxies.” Yet, there is some analytical
unity in the process of this category shift. The paper further suggests that
accounting for symbolic violence might enrich other empirical analyses of state-
sanctioned religious exclusion by bringing in otherwise ignored heterodoxies.
Now, crises of the magnitude of 1974 related to the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
have not yet burst out in any other part of the world, nor has the community
been constitutionally declared heretical by any other state. This may be ex-
plained by the fact that similar crises, contextual factors, and related heterodox-
ies have not yet erupted into unusual discourse elsewhere. But the Ahmadiyya
hereticization in Pakistan in 1974 quickly became a widely cited model for
anti-Ahmadi movements in other nations.12 There is thus ample potential for

12
For instance, the very same year in Jordan, and two years later in Mauritania and Saudi
Arabia (Friedmann 2003:44).
20 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

the theological heterodoxy of the Ahmadiyya to be officially censored elsewhere.

Irrespective of that, the 1974 parliamentary discourse also indicates two related
orthodoxies. Both may be widely observed in Muslim-majority countries and
elsewhere, all of whom share similarly modern state apparatuses and nationalist
religious discourse. It remains to be seen whether precisely these heterodox chal-
lenges and orthodox responses lead to similar results elsewhere, or whether differ-
ent orders of heterodox challenges can also result in a declaration of heresy.
Either way, this opens up a new empirical agenda for the sociology of heresy in
Muslim-majority states and elsewhere.

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was conducted while on fellowship at the University of

Tampere’s Institute for Advanced Social Research, and the support of the
Institute and feedback from its members are greatly appreciated. The author
would also like to thank Dr. Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir, Dr. Durre S. Ahmed, Major
(r) Shahid Ahmed, Dr. Ville Vuolanto, Dr. Pia Vuolanto, and members of the
Tampere research group for Cultural & Political Sociology for valuable com-
ments on an earlier draft. The paper also benefited from discussions with students
of REL3035S (2014) at the University of Cape Town, and the author is grateful
for that engagement. Four anonymous reviewers as well as the editor of SOR pro-
vided extensive and insightful input on earlier versions, and their input has im-
proved the paper greatly.

REFERENCES

Ahmed, Durre S. 2002. “Violence and the Feminine in Islam: A Case Study of the Zikris.”
Chapter 12 In Gendering the Spirit: Women, Religion and the Post-Colonial Response, edited
by D. S. Ahmed. London: Zed Books.
Ahmad, Mirza Nasir. 2003. Mahzarnama: The Memorandum—Submission by the Ahmadiyya
Muslim Jama’at to the National Assembly of Pakistan Regarding Its Basic Tenets. Lahore:
Islam International Publications.
Ahmed, Ishtiaq. 2010. “The Pakistan Islamic State Project: A Secular Critique.” In State and
Secularism: Perspectives from Asia, edited by M. H. Siam-Heng, and T. C. Liew, 185 – 211.
Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co.
Ahmad, Tufail. 2012. “Calls to Put Pakistani on Genocide Watch amid Mounting
Persecution of Its religious Minorities.” Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 884.
Washington, DC: The Middle East Media Research Institute.
Al-Islam. 2013. “Religious Persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.” Retrieved March
23, 2014. http://www.thepersecution.org/.
Amir, Ayaz. 2002. “Back to the Future.” Dawn, June 21.
Ammerman, Nancy T. 2014. “Finding Religion in Everyday Life.” Sociology of Religion
75:189 –207.
Asia, BBC News. 2014. “What Are Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws?” BBC News Asia Desk.
Aziz, Zahid. 1987. The Ahmadiyya Case: Case History, Judgment and Evidence. Newark, CA:
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at Islam Lahore.
 WHEN HETERODOXY BECOMES HERESY 21
Bell, James. 2012. The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity. Washington, DC: Pew Research
Center Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Bender, Courtney, Wendy Cadge, Peggy Levitt, and David Smidle, eds. 2012. Religion on the
Edge: De-Centering and Re-Centering the Sociology of Religion. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Berlinerblau, Jacques. 2001. “Toward a Sociology of Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Doxa.” History of
Religions 40:327 – 51.
Blom, Amelie. 2008. “The 2006 Anti-‘Danish Cartoons’ Riot in Lahore: Outrage and the
Emotional Landscape of Pakistani Politics.” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
2. Retrieved March 21, 2014. http://samaj.revues.org/1652.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, translated by R. Nice. Cambridge, UK:

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Cambridge University Press.
———. 1988. Homo Academicus, translated by P. Collier. Stanford: University of Stanford
Press.
———. 1989. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory 7, no. 1:14– 25.
———. 2000 [1997]. Pascalian Meditations, translated by R. Nice. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Cadge, Wendy, and Mary Ellen Konieczny. 2014. “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Significance of
Religion & Spirituality in Secular Organizations.” Sociology of Religion 75:551 – 63.
Cesari, Jocelyne. 2014. The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity and the
Nation-State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Correspondent. 2010. “Forced Marriage Threat Made to NGO Women.” Daily Dawn Pakistan,
Peshawar Metro Section, May 5.
Deer, Cécile. 2008. “Doxa.” In Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, edited by M. Grenfell, 119– 30.
Durham: Acumen.
Driessen, Michael D. 2014. “Regime Type, Religion-State Arrangements, and Religious
Markets in the Muslim World.” Sociology of Religion 75:367 – 94.
Eagleton, Terry. 1992. “Doxa and Common Life: An Interview.” New Left Review
191:111 – 21.
Friedmann, Yohanan. 2003. Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its
Medieval Background. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldziher, Ignaz. 1971. Muslim Studies. vol. 2. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Hamdani, Yasser Latif. 2012. “The 1974 NA Proceedings on the Ahmadi Issue.” Daily Times,
October 22.
Henderson, John. 1998. The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucianism, Islamic,
Jewish and Early Christian Patterns. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Idris, Kunwar. 2008. “Not in the Name of Faith.” Daily Dawn, September 21.
IRIN. 2003. “Pakistan: Focus on Honour Killings.” IRIN: A Service of the UNOCHA: UN
Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Khan, Amjad Mahmood. 2003. “Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan: An
Analysis under International Law and International Relations.” Harvard Human Rights
Journal 16, no. 2:217 – 44.
Khan, Naveeda. 2012. Muslim Becoming: Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan. Durham: Duke
University Press.
Kurtz, Lester R. 1983. “The Politics of Heresy.” American Journal of Sociology 88, no.
6:1085 – 115.
Lathan, Andrea. 2008. “The Relativity of Categorizing in the Context of Ahmadiyya.”
Die Welt des Islams 48:372 – 93.
Mahmud, Tayyab. 1995. “Freedom of Religion & Religious Minorities in Pakistan: A Study of
Judicial Practice.” Fordham International Law Journal 19, no. 1:40– 100.
Malik, Iftikhar H. 2002. Religious Minorities in Pakistan. London: Minority Rights Group.
22 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Marti, Gerardo. 2014. “Present and Future Scholarship in the Sociology of Religion.”
Sociology of Religion 75:503 – 10.
Myles, John F. 2004. “From Doxa to Experience: Issues in Bourdieu’s Adoption of Husserlian
Phenomenology.” Theory, Culture & Society 21, no. 2:91 – 107.
Pakistan, National Assembly. 1974. Official Report of the Special Committee of the Whole
House: Proceedings Held in Camera to Consider the Qadiani Issue. Islamabad: The
National Book Foundation.
Perelman, Chaı̈m. 1982. The Realm of Rhetoric. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Saeed, Sadia. 2007. “Pakistani Nationalism and the State Marginalisation of the Ahmadiyya
Community in Pakistan.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 7, no. 3:132 –52.
Sahgal, Neha. 2013. In Pakistan, Most Say Ahmadis Are Not Muslim. Washington, DC: Pew

Downloaded from http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on March 4, 2016

Research Center. Retrieved December 5, 2014. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/
2013/09/10/in-pakistan-most-say-ahmadis-are-not-muslim/.
Siddiq, Muhammad Nadeem Ahmad. 1995. “Enforced Apostasy: Zaheeruddin v. State and
the Official Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan.” Law & Inequality
14:275 –338.
Spickard, James V. 2007. “Micro Qualitative Approaches to the Sociology of Religion:
Phenomenologies, Interviews, Narratives, and Ethnographies.” In The SAGE Handbook
of the Sociology of Religion, edited by J. A. Beckford, and J. Demerath, 121 –43. London:
SAGE.
Strauss, Anselm L. 1987. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Sultana, Bushra. 2014. “Pakistan: No Political Representation of Ahmadis.” Ahmadiyya
Times, August 11.
Swartz, David. 1996. “Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion: Pierre Bourdieu’s Political
Economy of Symbolic Power.” Sociology of Religion 57:71 – 85.
Tanveer, Rana. 2013. “Ahmadi Persecution: Police Bow to Clerics to Tear Down Minarets.”
The Express Tribune, September 22.
Uddin, Asma T. 2013. “A Legal Analysis of Ahmadi Persecution in Pakistan.” In State
Responses to Minority Religions, edited by D. M. Kirkham, 81 –97. Farnham: Ashgate.
Valentine, Simon Ross. 2008. Islam and the Ahmadiyya Jama’at: History, Belief, Practice.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Verter, Bradford. 2003. “Spiritual Capital: Theorizing Religion with Bourdieu against
Bourdieu.” Sociological Theory 21, no. 2:150 – 74.
Wacquant, Loı̈c. 2007. “Pierre Bourdieu.” In Key Sociological Thinkers, edited by R. Stones,
261 – 77. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. 2 vols. Vol. 1.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wood, Linda A., and Rolf O. Kroger. 2000. Doing Discourse Analysis: Methods for Studying
Action in Talk and Text. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Wuthnow, Robert. 2014. “General Concepts and Domain-Specific Concepts: An Argument
about the Study of Religion in Society.” Sociology of Religion 75:594 –606.
Yusuf, Huma. 2012. “Minorities Report.” International Herald Tribune, December 6.
Zito, George V. 1983. “Toward a Sociology of Heresy.” Sociology of Religion 44:123 – 30.