Rabwah (Chenab Nagar)
Rabwah (modern-day Chenab Nagar) is the town established by the Ahmadis in the early 1950s. It is on the banks of the Chenab River in Punjab, Pakistan. Here are some events of this city that are not part of the official Ahmadiyya History:
- Allah Baksh Sadiq
- Abdul Mannan
This research paper has a detailed account of Rabwah in ~1954.
Chenab Nagar (چناب نگر ) is the new name of the town known as (ربوہ) that is the worldwide headquarters of the Qadiani Ahmadiyya. It lies on the western banks of the Chenab River in District Jhang, Pakistan.
Munir D. Ahmed writes:
Rabwah was not claimed as evacuee property by the Mirza family. It was waste land laying vacant for centuries and nobody had any claim on this tract of land.Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya (SAA) approached the Government of the Punjab to buy this land, which was ultimately handed over to it for the total sum of 50,000 Rupees. So it became the property of SAA and the plots for building of houses were sold and not leased by it to the Ahmadi population of Rabwah. But than you hear that also in this case property ownership rights were not transferred to the buyers and registered against their names in the Revenue Books.
The restriction on Ahmadis to claim property against their holdings in Qadian had nothing to do with Rabwah. You could claim property any where in Pakistan, as was done by the Mirza Family. In this case also for land which they had in fact sold to the Ahmadis, who were now restricted to file their claims. This is outright forgery on the part of the Mirza family.
And when you hear that all or at least a good part of their property was not taken over by the Indian Government as evacuee property and this was due to the fact that Mirza Waseem Ahmad had opted to stay on in India. Thus this property remained in the hands of the Mirza family. On the other hand they filed their claims against this property in Pakistan and got them approved by whatever means.
The myth of return to Qadian was kept alive by Mirza Mahmud Ahmad in order to calm down the passions of the Ahmadis, who had started realizing that they had been deceived.
Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya had remained in Qadian and it is still a registered body in India. In Chenab Nagar a new Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya was established as a separate body, which has technically nothing to do with SAA, Qadian. So this new entity had nothing to claim in Pakistan against lost property in India.
Another aspect of this matter is that Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, India, had land holdings in Sind in some cases also in other parts of Pakistan. How this land was given to the newly established Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, Rabwah, is a mystery. These land holdings should have been counted among "enemy property" because the SAA, Qadian, was based in India. But instead of distributing this land among the Refugees (muhajirs) against their claims for land holdings left behind in India, the entire property of SAA, Qadian, was handed over to the SAA, Rabwah. I suspect the hidden hand of MMA (Mirza Muzaffar Ahmad), who belonged to the hierarchy of the Government of Punjab, behind this matter.
Now I hope you understand that Rabwah is not owned by the Mirza family. SAA is also no more its owner. There is a town committee which has taken over propriety rights.