ਕਾਦੀਆਂਕਾਦੀਆਂ

Qadian is a historic town in Gurdaspur district of Punjab, India, and the birthplace of the Ahmadiyya movement, founded there by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889. Founded in 1530 by a Mughal qazi, this town of about 23,600 people is best known for the white Minarat-ul-Masih minaret and its annual Jalsa Salana gathering.

Where is Qadian?

Qadian stands about 18 kilometres north-east of Batala, in the Majha region of Punjab, India, and roughly 62 kilometres by road from Amritsar. It is a municipal council town of Gurdaspur district, set in flat wheat and paddy country in the heart of the Majha belt. The 2011 census counted 23,632 residents. Punjabi is the main language, spoken by about 86 percent of people, with Urdu (9 percent) and Hindi (4 percent) also spoken. The town is religiously mixed: Hindus form just over half the population, followed by Sikhs at about 31 percent and Muslims at about 13 percent, with a smaller Christian community. The postal code is 143516.

ਇਤਿਹਾਸ

Qadian was founded in 1530 by Mirza Hadi Beg, a Mughal of Samarkand who had come to India during the reign of Emperor Babur and was appointed qazi (judge) over the surrounding villages. He called the new settlement Islampur Qazi; over the centuries the name passed through Qazi Maji and Qadi before settling into Qadian. His descendants served as local chiefs under the Mughals, lost their lands to the Ramgarhia Sikhs, and regained Qadian in 1834, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh granted the town and five nearby villages to Mirza Ghulam Murtaza, the father of the future Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, in return for military service. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born in Qadian on 13 February 1835, worked for a few years as a clerk in Sialkot, and then returned to his home town, where he began the writing and preaching that made him famous.

Why is Qadian famous?

Qadian is famous as the birthplace and first headquarters of the Ahmadiyya movement. On 23 March 1889 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad took a pledge of allegiance from forty followers and founded the community, but it was Qadian that became its home: he lived there, wrote most of his books there, and built its first mosques and schools there. Ahmadi Muslims revere him as the promised Messiah and Mahdi; most mainstream Muslim scholars reject his claims, a controversy that has followed the community ever since, and the word derived from the town's name is sometimes used as a slur against Ahmadi Muslims. In 1891 Ahmad started the Jalsa Salana, an annual three-day gathering that first drew 75 people and had grown to nearly 40,000 by the last pre-Partition Jalsa of 1946. Qadian remained the movement's headquarters until 1947, when Partition placed the town in India. Much of the community migrated to the newly founded town of Rabwah in Pakistan, settled on 20 September 1948 and renamed Chenab Nagar in 1998, where the headquarters stayed until 1984. In Qadian itself, the second Ahmadi caliph left 313 men to guard the town's holy sites, and the movement's institutions there continue to this day.

What is Minarat-ul-Masih?

Minarat-ul-Masih, or the White Minaret, is the most recognisable building in Qadian. It stands beside the Masjid Aqsa, founded in 1876. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad laid its foundation stone on 13 March 1903, linking it to the Islamic tradition that the promised Messiah would appear by a white minaret east of Damascus. Work stopped for lack of money, and the minaret was finished in 1916 under his successor Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad. It has three stages, 92 steps and a height of about 105 feet; a clock was added in 1933 and the tower was veneered with white marble in 1980. It remains the most widely recognised symbol of the Ahmadiyya community, appearing on its flag and publications.

Other places of interest

Masjid Aqsa, the town's oldest Ahmadi mosque, dates to 1876, and the Mubarak Mosque followed in 1883. In all, Qadian has eleven Ahmadiyya mosques, most of them built before 1947. Bahishti Maqbara, the Heavenly Graveyard, was set aside in 1905 under Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's will for members of the community; he died in Lahore on 26 May 1908 and was brought by train to Batala and carried to Qadian, where he was buried the next day. A second Bahishti Maqbara later opened at Rabwah. Jamia Ahmadiyya Qadian, the community's missionary training seminary, and Noor Hospital are among the town's other institutions. Beyond the Ahmadi sites, the town has Hindu temples, Sikh gurdwaras and churches, and its market streets serve the surrounding villages.

Getting there

Qadian railway station (code QDN) sits at the end of the Batala-Qadian branch line. Trains first reached the town on 14 November 1928, and the line was electrified in 2021. Passenger trains link Qadian with Amritsar via Batala, a rail journey of about 55 kilometres. By road, the town connects through Batala to the Amritsar-Pathankot corridor. A much older plan is moving again: in June 2026 the central government revived the Qadian-Beas broad-gauge line, a 39.68 kilometre corridor expected to cost around Rs 1,400 crore, which would connect Qadian directly to Beas in Amritsar district.

Qadian today

Qadian is still a quiet, mixed town where the Ahmadiyya presence shapes daily life but Hindus, Sikhs and Christians live alongside in the same bazaars. The community's Talim-ul-Islam High School (founded 1889) and College (1898) began here; the college was later re-established at Rabwah. The Jalsa Salana continues to be held in Qadian every December: the 2023 gathering drew about 14,930 people from more than 40 countries, with the community's London-based head addressing the town by video and its motto, Love for all, hatred for none, displayed across the town. The town is also the seat of the Qadian Assembly constituency. Known to its people as Qadian Darul Aman, the abode of peace, it remains a place of pilgrimage for Ahmadis across the world.