Causes of the Internal Dissensions in the Ahmadiyya Movement (Part 9)

English Translation of ‘Ikhtilafat-e Silsilah-e Ahmadiyya ke Asbab’

by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din (Translated by Dr. Zahid Aziz)

The Light (UK), January 2010 Issue (pp. 5–7)

Note by the Translator: The first part of this translation was published in our April [2009] issue. The original book was published in December 1914, the year in which the split took place and the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore came into being.

You should place the following points before an attorney and seek his opinion. First show him the following text from the Will:

“For this purpose, there should be an Anjuman entrusted to spend, as it determines fit, the funds thus collected from time to time, on proclaiming the teachings of Islam and spreading the message of the oneness of God.”

After the Will, the Hazrat [Mirza Ghulam Ahmad] published an Appendix relating to the Will which was legally valid. Throughout this Appendix it is the Anjuman only which has been empowered to deal with every matter. Almost all the clauses in the Appendix contain the word ‘Anjuman’. It is true that the name of the Anjuman given in it by the great Hazrat is

“the Anjuman in charge of the affairs of the graveyard”,

but Mian sahib himself does not deny that this Anjuman was named Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya by the order of the great Hazrat in his lifetime, and the Sadr Anjuman took the place of

“the Anjuman in charge of the affairs of the graveyard”.¹

The following clauses of the Appendix to the Will are worthy of note:

After this, the rules and regulations of the Sadr Anjuman were formulated, which were published with the knowledge and permission of the Promised Messiah [Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian] under his signature,² and the Anjuman was officially registered on the basis of those rules. Then when the construction of the Mubarik Mosque was taking place under the supervision of Mir [Nasir Nawab] sahib, and certain problems arose, I myself submitted to the great Hazrat that he should decide to what extent the orders and decisions of the Sadr Anjuman are subject to the views of one individual, whether the affairs in the charge of the Anjuman are subject to some individual’s decisions or the Anjuman’s decisions regarding them are final. I have not given details here, but if the Mian sahib allows me I can go into details.

Upon my submission, that Messiah sent by God wrote the following words:

O you people who take the name of Ahmad! Was there not a time when you treated as sacred any handwritten note of the Promised Messiah, you would wear it in your necklaces as a token for blessing, and you would pay a high price to purchase it? Today, this is his writing whose original is in the possession of the

“pious members of Lahore”,

and I present it before you to give you light and blessing. Yet some unworthy people from among you mock and ridicule the publication of its photograph and say of us with scorn:

“They carry around a photo”.

For your factional interests, you tolerate this insult to his writing.

I am pained to say that I foresee two grave dangers and can see signs of them already. Never forget what happened in the case of the Israelite Jesus. He was elevated to the position of God, merely due to the exaggerations of his followers. I pray God does not allow that kind of misguidance to take root in the Ahmadiyya Movement. At this time people in Lahore are being told two things. Each and every Ahmadi is being visited at home and told, firstly, that Mirza sahib was an independent prophet in his own right. The second point they are informed of is that Mirza Mahmud Ahmad himself is a prophet of a high rank. The time is near when the doctrine will be coined that Hazrat Mirza sahib possessed such qualities that from him was going to be produced another man who would be a great prophet. I have heard these doctrines from the lips of a maulvi [cleric].

The same misrepresentations of the Promised Messiah’s writings which his opponents used to make, alleging that he claimed to be an independent prophet, which the holy Hazrat used to condemn as fabrications and slander, are now being substantiated by your own actions and beliefs. If the holy Hazrat is a real prophet in his own right, and is not merely one who possesses some qualities of prophets partially by being a reflection of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, if Ghulam Ahmad is not Ghulam of Ahmad but is himself Ahmad, and if the verse of the Quran about the coming Ahmad applies to him not merely in a secondary sense but in the real sense, and does not apply at all to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, then it implies that the Kalima [pronouncement of faith],

‘There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’,

has become altered. These beliefs are a dangerous attack on the holy Kalima. Alas, today you proved those allegations true which the opponents used to make against us. An allegation made against us is that we, the Ahmadis, have coined a separate Kalima. Remember that all these false charges and fabrications have been answered by your guide himself in the following words:

“After the Holy Prophet Muhammad, the Khatam-ul-mursalin, I consider anyone who claims prophethood and messengership to be a liar and kafir [non-Muslim].”³

Now what is the verdict of your own Imam about yourselves? This is the punishment for your declaring the other followers of the Qibla and reciters of the Kalima as being kafir. As a result of this wrong belief of yours, the heresy which you impute to others falls on you by the real verdict of your own guide. As far as I can guess, Hazrat Mian [Mahmud Ahmad] sahib is not responsible for this erroneous doctrine. If his private letter is true, which he wrote to Muhammad Usman and which was printed in Paigham Sulh, then he does not consider Hazrat Mirza sahib to be a prophet in his own right. But so far he has assumed silence about it. In that letter, while he calls it merely an exigency of the time that in order to show the real status of Hazrat Mirza sahib the word prophet must be used, yet on the other hand he expresses the fear that, because of this, people might come to believe in him as an independent prophet in his own right.

I inform Hazrat Mian sahib that his fear has proved true. May God save us from the exaggerations that are being told in parts of Lahore. A delegation is going from house to house with the message that Hazrat Mirza sahib was an independent prophet on par with the Holy Prophet Muhammad. This is why I have requested Mian sahib to clarify his own position. He must issue a clear statement about this doctrine and expel those people from his Jamaat [Movement] who spread such beliefs. He must dissociate himself from these ideas and, along with that, he must amend his principle that his followers can disagree with him in matters of faith. I think it is that principle which is responsible for the exaggerations and erroneous beliefs about prophethood that are being spread.

I quoted above extracts from the Will and the Appendix to the Will, and then I presented that handwritten note of the great Hazrat which is conclusive and decisive in fully explaining the purport of the Will. From these, the following conclusions emerge most clearly and plainly:

1. The Anjuman is the successor to the Khalifa appointed by God [i.e., the Promised Messiah].
2. The funds of the community are to be entrusted only to the Anjuman, not to any individual. Only the Anjuman is entitled to spend or make use of those funds.
3. All kinds of powers and responsibilities are given to the Anjuman, not to any individual.
4. The power to expel any member lies in the hands of the Anjuman, not in the hands of any individual.
5. All branches of the Anjuman are subordinate to the Anjuman, not to any individual who is khalifa.
6. After the lifetime of Hazrat Mirza sahib, the decisions of the Anjuman in all matters shall be final.

For God’s sake, consider how explicit are these instructions! In the dialogue published in Paigham Sulh between Hazrat Mian sahib and Sardar Ajab Khan, one reason given by Mian sahib for the need of an all-powerful khalifa is that he can expel unfit members from the Anjuman. Is this view not in plain contradiction to the instruction of the holy Hazrat about expulsion of members which he expressed in plain words [“…it shall be the duty of the Anjuman to expel him…”].

If the conclusions I have drawn above are correct, then to place all the funds of the Anjuman under the authority of one individual is contrary to the intent of Hazrat Mirza sahib. We are not discussing whether someone is trustworthy or not. I accept that Hazrat Mian [Mahmud Ahmad] sahib is honest in financial matters. However, it is a question of principle. The Promised Messiah gave the right to take donations from the members of the community to the Anjuman, and only to the Anjuman, but under the new beliefs this right is given to one individual. The Mian sahib announced that all donations must be sent to him by name and not to the Anjuman, and he kept this in force for about two weeks. Although afterwards, due to the needs of the time, he corrected this announcement, but he set a dangerous precedent by taking these powers. It will be argued that the Anjuman itself gave these powers over to one individual, and this answers the objection raised by the Lahore Ahmadis. They say that as the members of the Anjuman gave these powers to the Mian sahib, this cannot be in violation of the Promised Messiah’s intent. Dear ones, this argument is wholly wrong! If, God forbid, the Anjuman were to take a decision clearly against the teachings of Islam, would that be right? A decision of the Anjuman cannot be legally correct if it is opposed to a clear instruction of the Will. Not only legally, but also according to Islamic law as well, if an executor is given full authority in a will, that authority can only be used to carry out the intentions of the deceased. If the deceased has clearly expressed his intent in some matter, and the executor acting under that will does something opposed to it, this would be invalid in the law of the land and in Islamic law. For the Anjuman to give supreme authority over its affairs to an individual and not retain this power for itself is contrary to the plainly expressed Will of the holy Hazrat. Therefore, the decision of the present Sadr Anjuman of Qadian to give Mian sahib the same authority as that held by the Promised Messiah is invalid, even assuming that this Anjuman is legally still in existence and that its composition does not suffer from defects which invalidate its existence.

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Footnotes:

1. In the Will published by the Qadiani Jamaat in the collection Ruhani Khazain, the minutes of the first meeting of the Council of Trustees of the Anjuman, on 29 January 1906, have been appended. The heading of the minutes shows the name as Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya. See vol. 20, p. 330. ↩︎
2. These were published under the title Regulations of the Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya Qadian Approved by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah, in Badr, 16 February 1906, p. 5, and 23 February 1906, p. 8. ↩︎
3. Statement issued in Delhi, 2 October 1891. Majmua Ishtiharat, 1986 edition, vol. 1, pp. 230–231. ↩︎

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