Qadian was established in 1530 by Mirza Hadi Baig, a religious scholar dedicated to Islam and the first Qazi in the area.

He migrated from Samarkand and settled in Punjab where he was granted a vast tract of land comprising 80 villages by the emperor Babur.

In 1834, during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the region consisting of Qadian and five adjoining villages was given to Mirza Ghulam Murtaza, father of Ghulam Ahmad in return for military support in Kashmir, Mahadi, the Kulu valley, Peshawar and Hazara.

[2] A remote and unknown town, Qadian emerged as a centre of religious learning in 1889, when Mirza Ghulam Ahmad established the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Qadian remained the administrative headquarters and capital of the Ahmadiyya Caliphate until the partition of India in 1947, when much of the Community migrated to Pakistan.

Following the partition, Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, the second Khalifa of the Community, carefully oversaw the safe migration of Ahmadis from Qadian to the newly founded state, instructing 313 men, including two of his own sons, to stay in Qadian and guard the sites holy to Ahmadis, conferring upon them the title darveshān-i qādiyān (the dervishes of Qadian) and eventually moving the headquarters to Rabwah, Pakistan.

[11] Further, three mosques existed prior to the partition, but have since been occupied, namely:[11] Outside of Qadian, in the neighbouring areas, an additional four mosques of Kahlwan and Nangal Bagbana exist, namely:[11] Qadian is connected through its railway station, which was built back in November 1928.