Qadian

History

Qadian was established in 1530 by Mirza Hadi Baig, a religious scholar dedicated to Islam and the first Qazi in the area. Mirza Hadi Baig was from a royal household of Mirza of the Mughal Empire. He migrated from Samarkand and settled in Punjab where he was granted a vast tract of land comprising 80 villages by the emperor Babur. Because of his religious beliefs, he named the center of the 80 villages Islam Pur Qazi and governed from there. Over time, the name of the town changed to Qazi Maji, then Qadi, and eventually it became known as 'Qadian'. The term Qadiani is used as a slur to refer to Ahmadi Muslims, primarily in Pakistan. Qadian and the surrounding areas later fell to the Ramgarhia Sikhs under the leadership of Jassa Singh Ramgarhia who offered the ruling Qazis, two villages which they refused. In 1834, during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the region consisting of Qadian and five adjoining villages was given to Mirza Ghulam Murtaza, father of Ghulam Ahmad in return for military support in Kashmir, Mahadi, the Kulu valley, Peshawar and Hazara. A remote and unknown town, Qadian emerged as a centre of religious learning in 1889, when Mirza Ghulam Ahmad established the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. It was historically a Muslim-majority town, a Muslim enclave within the wider Gurdaspur District in British Punjab. In 1891 it became the venue for the community's annual gatherings. Qadian remained the administrative headquarters and capital of the Ahmadiyya Caliphate until the partition of India in 1947, when much of the Community migrated to Pakistan. Following the partition, Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, the second Khalifa of the Community, carefully oversaw the safe migration of Ahmadis from Qadian to the newly founded state, instructing 313 men,…

Geography

Qadian is located at . It has an average elevation of 250 metres (820 feet).

Most-observed species

• Rose-ringed Parakeet

  Psittacula krameri (Scopoli, 1769) · Aves
  126
• Common Myna

  Acridotheres tristis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  124
• House Crow

  Corvus splendens Vieillot, 1817 · Aves
  122
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  116
• Red-vented Bulbul

  Pycnonotus cafer (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  98
• Common Tailorbird

  Orthotomus sutorius (Pennant, 1769) · Aves
  74
• Red-wattled Lapwing

  Vanellus indicus (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  68
• Greater Coucal

  Centropus sinensis (Stephens, 1815) · Aves
  58

Most recent

• M 3.1 — 2015-11-05
  14 km SSW of Narang Mandi, Pakistan
• M 4.4 — 2013-11-06
  9 km NE of Gagret, India
• M 4.4 — 2013-08-29
  1 km NNE of Una, India
• M 4.2 — 2012-10-03
  10 km NW of Dharamsala, India
• M 4.5 — 2010-03-14
  4 km ENE of Gagret, India
• M 3.3 — 2008-04-09
  27 km WSW of Amritsar, India