Qadiani Leader’s [Khalifa Mirza Masroor Ahmad] recent Comments about our Jamaat [Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam]
A Refutation and Reply
The Light (UK), August 2006 Issue (pp. 4–6)
The Qadiani Khalifa Mirza Masroor Ahmad, in connection with his recent tour of the Asia-Pacific region, has made mention of members of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat in three of his Friday khutbahs [sermons] during April and May [2006]. In the first of these, delivered in the Fiji Islands on 28th April, published in Al-Fazl International dated 19–25th May, he quotes the following statement of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad about his mission:
“The principal objective of the coming of the prophets in the world, and the great aim of their teaching and preaching, is to make people find God and be saved from their sinful lives which are leading them to hell and destruction. … So, at the present time this Movement that God has established and He has commissioned me, the purpose of my coming is the same as the purpose that all the prophets had in common. That is, I want to tell you what is God?”
After making some reasonable observations about this statement, Mirza Masroor Ahmad adds:
“Secondly, this excerpt that I have read is also an answer to those of our brothers who believe that the Promised Messiah was a Mujaddid and reformer, but not a prophet. By saying that the purpose of his coming is the same purpose that all the prophets had in common, he has made it clear that Allah bestowed upon him the status of prophethood.” (p. 6)
This conclusion is simply baseless. The purpose of the work of all saints, preachers and reformers among Muslims is
“the same purpose that all the prophets had in common”,
but they are not prophets. In the Holy Quran the Holy Prophet Muhammad is told to declare:
ہٰذِہٖ سَبِیۡلِیۡۤ اَدۡعُوۡۤا اِلَی اللّٰہِ ۟ؔ عَلٰی بَصِیۡرَۃٍ اَنَا وَ مَنِ اتَّبَعَنِیۡ ؕ
“This is my way: I call to Allah, with sure knowledge (baseerat) — I and those who follow me.” (The Holy Quran, 12:108)
The Holy Prophet, as well as those who follow him, call mankind to God through baseerat or their sure personal knowledge and experience of spiritual matters. The followers do not become prophets by sharing the mission of the Holy Prophet with him.
We may also point out that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has written in his book Fath Islam, published in 1891, that one essential part of the work of the prophets was to meet and talk to individuals and gatherings, and answer their questions and doubts according to the needs of the people, and that people were commanded to keep company with the prophets. This practice, he writes, is followed by him as well:
“The usual practice of the prophets was that, at times of need, … they, with the power of the Holy Spirit, delivered discourses in various assemblies and gatherings to suit the level and condition of the audience. … The same principle is also followed by this humble servant, so that the speech is always in accordance with the capacity of understanding and the needs of the visitors and guests, and bears in mind their spiritual ailments. … This is the reason why God the Most High sent thousands of prophets and messengers, and commanded that the privilege of their company should be sought… So it is on the same basis that this humble servant has been raised in order to continue this institution.”
Even the Qadiani Jamaat holds that when he wrote the above lines, he was not claiming to be a prophet; according to them he did not claim to be a prophet until ten years later. So, according to their own beliefs, if Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad writes that he is continuing the mission of the prophets it does not mean that he is claiming to be a prophet himself as well.
Again, appealing to Muslims in general to help him in his mission, he writes in the same book:
“… I call the attention of the Muslims to provide help, as all the prophets of God in the past called attention at times of difficulty.”
The Qadiani Jamaat have no option but to admit that he wrote this without claiming to be a prophet.
Do we forbid our Members to read any Books?
In his khutbah of 19th May 2006, Mirza Masroor Ahmad describes meeting a member of our Jamaat in New Zealand and his talk with him as follows:
“He was insistent that the Promised Messiah was not a prophet, but he had not read the literature. I said to him: You do not need to read anything else except this booklet Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala. The same discussion is in other books as well, but this will be sufficient to satisfy you. … I was also told there that the executive body of these people do not allow them to read all the books of the Promised Messiah, or do not publish them, in case they find out the truth about the claim to prophethood.” (Al-Fazl International, 9–15th June 2006, p. 8)
It is an entirely false and baseless allegation that our Jamaat prohibits its members from reading certain writings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. We find it astonishing that Mirza Masroor Ahmad, after being told this by someone, announces this allegation in a khutbah broadcast to the public on television, without any attempt to verify its truth. Is it his practice to repeat hearsay allegations that he picks up from here and there without checking them, as long as they serve his purpose? Let him name any book that we are allegedly prohibiting our members from reading, and we will forthwith advise our members to read it!
Take the case of Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala, mentioned by him, which the Qadiani Jamaat considers as the best proof that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a prophet. Our Jamaat first published the text of this booklet in 1915, shortly after the Split, within the appendix of the epic work An-Nubuwwat fil-Islam by Maulana Muhammad Ali. In 1951 the English translation of this booklet by the late Maulana S.M. Tufail was published under the title Correction of an Error, with an introduction and explanatory notes by the translator. The same translation was later incorporated within Prophethood in Islam, the translation of the above-mentioned An-Nubuwwat fil-Islam done by Maulana Tufail and published in 1992. Urdu editions of Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala have also been published by our Jamaat along with explanatory notes to clear misconceptions.
Your editor (Zahid Aziz) also translated Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala into English anew, with explanatory notes, after the experience of the South Africa court cases. This has been available on our websites for about seven years. Please see the link:
www.ahmadiyya.org/noclaim/gh-trans.htm
While he accuses us of concealment, perhaps he should next explain in a khutbah the whole truth about what the Qadiani Jamaat believes in regard to this very booklet. Their belief is that prior to publishing this pamphlet in 1901 Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had been wrongly denying the allegation of his opponents for ten years that he claimed to be a prophet, so now he was announcing to the world that his previous denials were to be disregarded. This view is obviously outrageous and absurd that a prophet constantly and repeatedly denied being a prophet, for ten years of his mission out of a total of 17 years, because he misunderstood his own claim, but all this time his opponents who accused him of making this claim were right and, in the end, they were proved correct and he was wrong.
Mirza Masroor Ahmad either does not know or he does not wish to mention that his own Jamaat believes that Hazrat Mirza’s pre-1901 statements about prophethood and his claim, in 17 volumes out of the 23 volumes of his collected works (published in the series Ruhani Khazain), are incorrect and invalid. On the other hand, our Jamaat believes that all such statements from the beginning in 1891 to the end in 1908 are valid and consistent.