The History of the Ahmadi-Caliph Relationship
This chapter discusses the distinctive theology of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, before exploring the historical processes through which the Ahmadi–caliph relationship became the dominant mode by which members of today's Jamaʻat attempt to evidence their Muslimness. In the early twentieth century, the second caliph directed a series of massive expansions to the Jamaʻat system and institutionalized key relationships of devotion, including a new scheme in which Ahmadis were encouraged to give their lives in service as waqf, an Islamic term normally reserved for endowments of property. The chapter also explores the ambivalent political aspirations of the Ahmadiyya caliphate. Described by his followers as nonpolitical, the caliph nevertheless follows a Sufi tradition of exercising a spiritual sovereignty that overlaps with and potentially encompasses worldly power. The chapter then shows that the Ahmadi-caliph relationship is understood to have its own political trajectory leading to the establishment of a new world system in which conventional secular politics are rendered defunct.