Indonesia’s Attorney General has banned a controversial Islamic sect from practising in the country. But the government has stopped short of disbanding the Ahmadiyah sect altogether.

The Ahmadiyah sect was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the 19th century in the Indian state of Punjab, and is now estimated to have more than ten million followers worldwide. They believe their founder to be another prophet of Islam whose mission was to establish a movement that would revitalise their religion.

But mainstream Muslims around the world have strongly rejected Ahmadiyah’s edict and insist that Prophet Muhammad is the final messiah. And for more than 500,000 Ahmadiyah Muslims in Indonesia, those rejections took on greater significance after attorney general Whishnu Subroto banned the religious group form practising in the country.
The ruling has sparked an outcry among those who believe the government’s decision violates Indonesia’s constitution which guarantees the freedom to practice religion. Mainstream Muslim organisation like NU and Muhammadiyah do not have a problem with Ahmadiyah because Ahmadiyah has been existence in Indonesian for many, many years since the 1920s. So they live peacefully side by side. So there is no problem with mainstream, but the problem is there are groups that are led by puritanical or pristine kind of Islam that wants to distance Islam from what they call deviant things.