Those who support Violence for Religion are Foes of Islam
Condemnation of Muslim Clerics who preach Hate and Violence against other Religions
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian
The Light (UK), December 2007 Issue (pp. 3–5)
Editor’s note: It is one century ago that the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement [Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian] made his forthright and unequivocal comments, as given below, regarding those Muslim clerics who preached hatred and violence against the followers of other religions. Almost exactly the same lamentable situation exists today, making his observations as relevant now as they were then, if not more so.
There is not the least truth in the assertion that this is the time for resorting to the sword and gun for spreading the true religion and righteousness. The sword, far from revealing the beauties and excellences of truth, makes them dubious and throws them into the background. Those who hold such views are not friends of Islam but its deadly foes. They have low motives, mean natures, poor spirits, narrow minds, dull brains and short sight. It is they who open the way to an objection against Islam, the validity of which cannot be questioned. They hold that Islam needs the sword for its advancement and thus brand its purity and cast a slur upon its holy name. The religion that can easily establish its truth and superiority by sound intellectual arguments, heavenly signs or other reliable testimony, does not need the sword to threaten men and force a confession of its truth from them. Religion is worth the name only so long as it is in consonance with reason. If it fails to satisfy that requisite, if it has to make up for its discomfiture in argument by handling the sword, it needs no other argument for its falsification. The sword it wields cuts its own throat before reaching others.
If it be objected that the sword was resorted to by early Islam and hence the legality of jihad [of war], we say the objection is based upon ignorance of the circumstances under which Islam passed its early days. Islam never allows the use of the sword for spreading the faith. On the other hand, it strictly prohibits compulsion in matters of faith. It has the plain injunction:
لَاۤ اِکۡرَاہَ فِی الدِّیۡنِ
“There shall be no compulsion in religion” [the Quran, 2:256].
It is, however, true that the Maulvis [common Muslim clerics] and the Christian missionaries are equally to blame for this unjust charge against Islam. The ignorant Maulvis while pretending to support Islam, have, by their repeated inculcations, engrafted the false doctrine of jihad upon the minds of the unenlightened public who were misled by the fatwas [religious pronouncements] of the Maulvis on the one side and the objections of the Christian missionaries, whom they took for learned men, on the other. The doctrine of jihad being thus supported by the evidence of the two opposing witnesses, its validity could not be questioned by the masses. Had the missionaries taken a different course and with true honesty declared that the fatwas of the Maulvis were based on ignorance of the early Islamic history, and that the circumstances which then rendered an appeal to arms necessary for Muslims did not exist anymore, the idea of jihad [by war] would long since have been eradicated from the face of the earth. But they never looked to the consequences, and a misdirected zeal for their own religion cast a veil over their judgements in grasping the truth.
It must also be stated here that permission for self-defence and murdering the enemies of Islam was not given to the Muslims until the Arabs had, on account of their severe oppression and outrages and the shedding of innocent blood, rendered themselves culpable and liable to be punished with death. But clemency was even then shown to such of them as embraced Islam. The unity of religion established a relation of brotherhood and all past wrongs were forgotten. It is here that some opponents of Islam have stumbled and from this they draw the conclusion that the new religion was forced upon the unbelievers. In fact, the case is just the reverse of what the objectors have thought. There is no compulsion here: it was a favour to those who had rendered themselves liable to death. It is apparently absurd to take this conditional mitigation of just punishment for compulsion. They deserved to be murdered, not because they did not believe in the mission of the Prophet, but because they had murdered many an innocent soul. The extreme penalty of the law was upon them, but the mercy of the gracious God gave them another chance of averting this merited capital punishment. He knew that during the long years of opposition the Islamic truths had been brought home to them and they well understood the futility of idol-worship, therefore, His mercy offered them an opportunity, even after the sentence was justly pronounced against them, for imploring His pardon and the forgiveness of their sins. This clearly shows that it was not the object of Islam to put any unbeliever merely as such to death, but that it was willing to forgive even when the criminal was found deserving of the death penalty.
Islam had to grapple with other difficulties. Religious prejudice was so strong at the time that if a member of any tribe adopted the faith of Islam, he was either put to death or threatened with it, and persecution was so severe that life seemed a burden to him. Islam had, therefore, to face the difficulty of establishing freedom of conscience and religious practices and for this noble object it had to undertake wars.
The early wars of Islam fall in either of the above categories. Islam never took the sword for its own propagation or for any other purpose. Attempts were made to blot out its very existence and, therefore, it had to struggle for its life. It did not take up arms of its own accord but was compelled to do so. It had to defend itself and repel the dangerous foe.
Later on, when its true principles were forgotten, the doctrine was read in a different light and ignorance looked with pride upon a hateful course of life. But the fault can in no way be attributed to Islam. The source from which it flows is pure and undefiled. That this doctrine has been identified with Islamic teachings by shallow-minded zealots who do not care for the life of man, even so much as man should care for the life of a sparrow, cannot be questioned. But the innocent blood that has been spilt in the past does not satisfy them. They have yet a bloody Mahdi in store for the world, and would like to exhibit the ugliest picture of Islam before all nations, so that all people may know that Islam has always had to resort for its propagation to force and the sword, and that it has not so much as a particle of truth in it to achieve its conquest over hearts.
It seems as if the holders of these views are not satisfied with the humiliation and decadence which Islam has already suffered but must bring it still lower and subject it to yet more disgrace. These men are a reproach to Islam. But God now wills that Islam should not any longer be branded with reproaches and remain hidden behind a cloud. It is already so distressing to find that its opponents, who have not taken the trouble to investigate matters for themselves, have it impressed upon their minds that Islam has, from its very beginning, been employing the sword to add to its numbers.
It is high time that all these base charges should be removed from the face of Islam. If the Maulvis unite to root out the evil from the midst of the Muslims, they shall have done a lasting good to, and conferred a blessing upon, their co-religionists. Such an exposition of the doctrine of Islam will further reveal the excellence and beauties of the religion to the general public, and the aversion which its opponents have conceived on account of misconceptions will be turned into admiration. The clouds of dust being cleared, they shall then be able to get their light from that source of light.
It is evident that no one can approach a bloody murderer. Everyone fears him, women and children tremble at his sight, and he looks like a mad man. An opponent of an alien religion cannot even pass a night with him lest he should choose to be Ghazi [a Muslim warrior] at the cost of his life. Such events daily occur among the ignorant frontier people,1 and a single bloody deed is deemed sufficient to entitle the murderer to a life in paradise and its manifold blessings. It is a shame for Muslims that alien races cannot safely live as their neighbours. They cannot trust them for a single moment and hardly expect any good in times of need. They do not deem themselves safe among them and shrink at the hidden belief of Ghazism.
Prevalence of Evils calls for Reformer:
Such are the evils that call for a reformer. Casting a glance at the internal state of Islam, we meet with a sad disappointment. It is a ghastly picture. The sun has undergone an eclipse, the greater part being already darkened. The social relations of the Muslims are deplorable. Traditions have been fabricated that act like poison upon their moral conditions and break the Divine Laws. The most sacred rights which Divine law has given to man are those relating to life, property and honour. We are commanded not to kill man, not to commit an outrage upon his honour, and not to seize his property dishonestly. But some so-called Muslims have broken all these commandments. They take away the life of an innocent person and never shudder at the inhuman deed. Empty-headed Maulvis have circulated fatwas to the effect that it is lawful to seduce or seize the women of unbelievers or heretics, and to steal or misappropriate their properties.
How dangerous the condition of the religion that is full of so many evils, and whose false leaders, instead of acting in obedience to the dictates of their conscience, follow their sensual desires and palm off their erroneous views as holy doctrines taught by God and His Prophet. These are wolves in sheep’s clothing and they deceive the people. They act like poison and say they are an antidote. They are an enemy to society and an enemy to Islam. Their hearts are void of grace and sympathy but they conceal themselves. They put on the mask of preachers but have in view the indulgence of their own carnal desires. They come into the mosques like saints, but their character is black with diabolic deeds. These infamous characters are not limited to any particular country or town or sect, but may be found in every Muslim country. They pretend to be the religious leaders of the people and exponents of the doctrines of the religion. They call themselves Maulvis and assume saintly airs so that they may pass for godly men. Their deeds, however, reveal their true character. They do not like that true righteousness and true sympathy be spread in the world, for they consider that a loss to themselves.
Footnotes:
- Note: The author is referring to the inhabitants of the North-West Frontier Province of India of his time, now in Pakistan. ↩︎