Since its earliest history in the Gambia, the community has been facing resistance and religious intolerance from certain Muslim clerics and Islamic bodies in the country.
[1] In the early 20th century, the Muslim Congress of Gambia generally considered itself to be responsible for the advancement of Islamic education among the country's populations.
In view of the supremacy of the Christian missionary activity in the colony, a small group of people from Bathurst, now Banjul, began to feel that the Congress was lacking diligence in its efforts.
The group established an Arabic school and desired that a Pakistani Ahmadi teacher, Mubarak Ahmad Saqi, then a missionary in Sierra Leone, be employed.
The Fazl Mosque in London requested Hugh Linstead, a British Member of Parliament to write to the authorities to overturn the decision made in the colony.
An alternative candidate, Muhammad Ishaq Sufi, a pioneering missionary stationed in Liberia was also offered on whose behalf it is stated that a petition with 250 signatures from Ahmadi Muslims of Banjul was prepared.
[3] Following his appointment, he wrote a letter to the Caliph III requesting a piece of cloth of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement.
[11] In January 2015, the Gambia Supreme Islamic Council aired on state television its decision to declare the Community, as a non-Muslim group.