Ahmaddiya is a new religious movement that originated as a sect of Islam. The Ahmaddiya movement was founded by the religious reformer Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) in the village of Qadian in the Punjab region of India. The movement became known as the Ahmaddiya movement after Prophet Muhammad's alternative name. The movement started at the end of the 19th century as a reaction against what he regarded as the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of Punjabi Muslims. Having accepted the Muslim veneration of the old prophets, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad considered Krishna and Buddha as local prophets; he was acclaimed as the reformer of Islam (Mujadid) and the long-awaited Messiah and Mahdi. As the reformer of Islam in the 14th century of the Hejira era, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad ...