Prayer Duels to the Death

Abstract

This chapter analyzes what appears to be a drastic last-resort attempt to prove Muslim identity in the form of an open challenge to all opponents issued by the fourth caliph in 1988. This was the mubahala, an ordeal that takes the form of a prayer duel to the death in which God is expected to smite the false party and thus make truth visible. Many Ahmadis believe that the 1988 death of the president of Pakistan, General Zia ul-Haq, was a direct result of this mubahala challenge. In spite of this seeming victory, however, it would appear that the fourth caliph actually challenged his opponents to this ordeal in order to let the ritual fail. The chapter assesses how an ordeal designed to produce testable and empirical proof of Muslimness ended up functioning through its failures rather than its successes. In issuing this challenge, the fourth caliph was ridiculing his opponents and mocking their claims to know the minds of the Ahmadis. In fact, the chapter shows that the call to mubahala was an argument for the demonstrability of Muslimness through the quality and nature of a person's social relations.