Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian was a Non-Conformist (Ghayr Muqallid)

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا رسول الله

Mawlana Ghulam Dastagir of Qasur, may Allah have mercy on him, was an orthodox Sunni cleric and one of the first individuals to come out openly in opposition to the antichrist Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.

When the latter published his Barahin-i-Ahmadiyyah series, in which he claimed to be sent by Allah, a Mulham and Mujaddid, it was Mawlana Ghulam Dastagir who refuted him and obtained fatawa from various Ulama against Mirza of Qadian.

Mawlana Ghulam Dastagir wrote Tahqiqat-i-Dastagiriyyah, published in 1883, in which he exposed the fact that Mirza of Qadian, at least at that time, was a ghayr muqallid (non-conformist), and not a traditional Sunni Muslim who conforms to the Hanafi school:

مرزا غلام احمد قادیانی پنجابی جو علماء غیر مقلدین سے ہے

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani Punjabi, who is from the Ulama of the Ghair Muqallidin (Tahqiqati Dastagiriyyah, p.3)

This is noteworthy because these days the party of the misguided non-conformists boldly assert that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a Hanafi, that his followers, the Qadianis who call themselves Ahmadis, are likewise Hanafis, and therefore this is a fitnah that was produced by the Ahnaf. This falsehood is especially propagated by another antichrist of our time, Engineer Mirza Muhammad Ali of Jhelum.

The truth is that Mirza of Qadian was in fact a non-conformist highly influenced by the ideas of Wahhabism, introduced into India by Sayyid Ahmad of Rai Bareli and Shah Ismail of Delhi in the early 19th century. Mirza’s two most senior henchmen were Nuruddin of Bhera and Abd ul-Karim of Sialkot. These two were non-conformists of the so-called Ahli Hadith movement, but also highly influenced by the modernism and naturalism of another notorious non-conformist heretic, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan—founder of the Aligarh school.

A companion and disciple of the false prophet Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was Mirza Khuda Bakhsh. He compiled the text Asl-e-Musaffa published in 1913, in which he lists, on page 165, the Mujaddids officially accepted by the Ahmadiyyah movement. That list includes as Mujaddids from the 12th century Hijri: Ibn Abd al-Wahhab of Najd and al-Shawkani, and from the 13th century Hijri: Sayyid Ahmad of Rai Bareli and Shah Ismail of Delhi:

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab of Najd is the namesake of Wahhabism, while al-Shawkani of Yemen introduced non-conformism, which gave birth to the so-called Ahl-e-Hadith movement in India. Sayyid Ahmad of Rai Bareli and Shah Ismail of Delhi propagated Wahhabism in India. That these four individuals are considered Mujaddids by the Ahmadiyyah movement is sufficient to classify the Qadianis as an offshoot of Wahhabism and non-conformism, rejection of taqlid.