Intro
In 2025, the National Jalsa Salana was held in Fiji and barely 50 men and boys can be seen at Masjid-temple Fazle-Omar. Maulana Naeem Ahmad Iqbal was announced as the Ameer and missionary-in-charge. Allegedly, 260 men, women and children attended.
In 2024, we estimate that there are 600 Ahmadi’s in Fiji (Lahori and Qadiani). There are 6 Qadiani-Ahmadiyya temples (see the list in the below) and one Lahori-Ahmadi temple. By 1979, the Ahmadiyya Movement was claiming to have only 2 mission houses and 10 mosques in the entire country.
The earliest mention of Ahmadi’s in Fiji comes from 1931. In Sep-1931, Muhammad Abdullah was published in the famous Lahori-Ahmadi newspapers, “The Light” (See “The Light”, Sep 16, 1931, p. 10 & 11, Muhammad Abdullah, “Letters to the Editor: Muslims in Fiji Islands”). Apart from spearheading Indo-Fijian Islamic youth education, Abdullah emerged as a fiery religious defender of Islam desperately struggling to shield the Fiji Muslim community from the pernicious threats posed by Arya Samaj and Sanatan Dharm Sabha Hindu missionaries in the 1930s. On behalf of the nation-wide Fiji Muslim League (fml) in 1931, Abdullah publicly lambasted Hindu missionaries in Fiji who were “hard at work to crush the Muslims” through operations “of a clandestine nature but to the observant eye, they are vivid and clear”.
In 1933, the Lahori-Ahmadi’s sent another missionary. Maulana Mirza Muzaffar Baig Sateh and his family arrived in Fiji by steamer ship to help the Indian Muslims of Fiji. Allegedly, Maulana Mirza Muzaffar Baig Sateh was well-versed in Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic and English, that nobody in Fiji was able to rival his debater’s leadership. The Fiji Muslim League soon came to realisation that Maulana Mirza Muzaffar Baig Sateh was from the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam (Lahore) and the Fiji Muslim League then placed a ban on all members of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam (Lahore) from performing their prayers in the Jame Masjid in Amy Street (Toorak) in Suva. This deadlock situation was then relayed by letter to Maulana Muhammad Ali at Lahore, in British India. Upon express instructions from Maulana Muhammad Ali (who was also a lawyer) to Maulana Mirza Muzaffar Baig Sateh, the Muslims of Fiji proceeded to register the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i-Islam (Lahore), as a collective religious body for Muslims, and which also had the capacity to sue and get sued. Consequently, on 3rd October 1934, the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at-i-Islam (Lahore) Fiji was registered in Fiji, at the office of the Registrar General in Suva. By 1935, Maulana Mirza Muzaffar Baig Sateh goes totally missing as does Maulana Muhammad Abdullah and Hameeda (his wife). The community of Lahori-Ahmadi’s seem to have all left Ahmadiyya.
For a few years after 1934 the controversy between the Ahmadiyyas and the orthodox Muslims died down, but rows within the Muslim community continued over personalities and political ambitions rather than doctrines. The Punjabi brothers, Said Hasan and Muhammad Hasan, both lawyers and Sunnis, won for themselves positions of leadership in the Muslim community and respect from the government. But they were unable to control the Suva branch of the Muslim League, and their political ambitions were challenged by the Sahu Khan family, who formed the Muslim Association in 1938, with other Ahmadiyyas and some Sunnis as well. There was further trouble after the arrival of an orthodox teacher, Aziz Ahmed, in 1938, and there were quarrels over the possession of the Lautoka mosque in 1939, but the details need not detain us here. Enough has been said to indicate the pattern of sectarian conflict, exacerbated by personal and political rivalries and the activities of preachers and teachers from India, as the Indian community in Fiji struggled to educate its children and find dignity and acceptance in its new land and links with its past in India. (See, Fiji Times and Herald of Nov 21-22-24-26, 1938, Via K.L. Gillion, “The Fiji Indians: Challenge to European Dominance, 1920-1946″).
The Lahori-Ahmadi’s returned to the island with their Maulvi’s (Maulana Ahmad Yar) in the 1960’s when “The Muslim League” invited them. The Qadiani-Ahmadi’s didn’t show up until the 1960’s. Per Qadiani-Ahmadi sources, Qadiani-Ahmadiyya was established in 1960 via their employee, Sheikh Abdul Wahid (See “Ahmadiyya Muslim Mosques Around The World”, 2008).
Lahori-Ahmadi Missionaries who were contracted to travel to Fiji from Lahore, as resident missionaries were in the following sequence (excluding Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarti, who came as a touring visitor for 3 months in 1956 and not as the resident missionary):
1. Maulana Ahmad Yar
2. Maulana-Hafiz Sher Muhammad
3. Maulana Shafkat Rasool
4. Maulana Abdul Salaam
5. Maulana Fazal Haq
In 1983, Mirza Tahir Ahmad visited and gave a Khutbah Juma on 9-23-1983, he visited again in 1989. The 5th Khalifa visited in April of 2006.
In 1992, after the death of Maulana Muhammad Abdullah, new details emerged about him which alleged Per Lahori-Ahmadi sources (in the 1990’s), that in 1931, the Lahori-Ahmadi’s (Per the order of Muhammad Ali) sent Maulana Muhammad Abdullah to Fiji to help the lost Indian Muslims who had went there many years earlier as indentured servants. However, Maulana Muhammad Abdullah was not a qualified Imam, he was a simple school-teacher in Lahore, his wife (Hameeda) also went with him, maybe he had a basic understanding of Islam and the prayers. Maulana Muhammad Abdullah and Hameeda (his wife) started a school in the Nausori area of Fiji and were allegedly successful. They built the Vunimono Islamia School and its masjid.
Since 2008, the national president of the Qadiani-Ahmadi Fijian jamaat is Maulana Fazal Ullah Tariq, before him it was Maulana Naeem Ahmad Cheema (who seems to be working in Ghana these days). You can find the MKA-Fiji twitter account herein. In Baypoint, Ca, a Fijian born imam is working, Khalid Khan on twitter as @fijian_imam.
Also in 2008, Fatima Fanusie alleges (5:27 timestamp) alleges that the arrival of Muhammad Abdullah on the Fiji islands was documented in various contemporary newspapers in 1927 (See her doctoral dissertation, “Fard Muhammad in Historical Context: An Islamic Thread in the American Religious and Cultural Quilt”). However, this has all been disproven.

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