New area: Miracles, Myths, Mistakes and Matters — See Title Page and List of Contents
— latest, 28th March 2018: Sufism – The Path Of Each And Every Muslim Via ‘Common’ Islam, Quran And Sunnah
See: Project Rebuttal: What the West needs to know about Islam
Refuting the gross distortion and misrepresentation of the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad and Islam, made by the critics of Islam
Read: Background to the Project
List of all Issues | Summary 1 | Summary 2 | Summary 3 — completed, 28th June 2013
With the completion of the renovation of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Mosque in Berlin (built 1927), a ceremony was held on 17th April 2018 to mark this event.
Here is a link to a pdf document with some photographs of the occasion and links to two brief video clips.
Zahid Aziz
An academic researcher at a prestigious USA university writes to me praising the quality of the book 'A Mighty Striving'. She says:
"The book "A Mighty Striving" is very well done, the prose is flawless and flowing, and I like the combination of original source material with a narrative that is both descriptive and analytical."
This book is the English translation of Mujahid-i Kabir done by my late mother Mrs Akhtar Aziz and myself, with supplementary material and extra references added by me. The book Mujahid-i Kabir is the biography of Maulana Muhammad Ali in Urdu.
The researcher's topic is the history of the Anjuman Himayat-i Islam, a mainstream Muslim association founded in Lahore in the 1880s. The researcher comments as follows:
"The Anjuman-i Himayat-i Islam's relationship with the Ahmadiyya is very interesting, because it seemed to have changed much over time. In the beginning, there were close ties between both organizations, I think. As you probably know, Khalifah Hamid ad-Din was one of the founders of the Anjuman, and his son Khalifah Rashid ad-Din converted to the Ahmadiyya. His daughter Rashida married Mirza Mahmud Ahmad. In 1890, the Himayat-i Islam also published Ibtal uluhiyyat-i Masih by Nur ad-Din, with the permission of the author and for the "benefit of the people of Islam", as it says on the title page. It also publicly endorsed other Ahmadi writings in its monthly Risalah. In the 1890s, as you know, Khwaja Kamal ad-Din and Muhammad Ali taught at Islamia College.
I wonder though when the relationship changed, and why? There must have been a lot of interaction between the Ahmadiyya Anjuman in Lahore and the Himayat-i Islam, because since 1914, Islamia College and the Ahmadiyya Buildings were on the same street. Also, how does one explain the role of Muhammad Iqbal? He still had a positive attitude towards members of the Lahore group, such as Khwaja Kamal ad-Din in 1911 and even after that. Why did he change his position later on and attack the community?"
I may add that these are questions explored by real and proper acedemic researchers, who carry out serious, objective study. They are at the opposite end of the spectrum from bigots of little knowledge and no reasoning capability who seek the approbation of the common crowd.
The following has been submitted by Hussun Ahmad.
In the same speech of 1912 he [Hazrat Maulana Nur-ud-Din] also says:
The descendants and close relatives of Hadrat Mirza Sahib are all devoted to me. I tell you truly that there is not one of you who obeys me as do my dear ones Mahmud, Bashir and Sharif, and as do Mir Nasir Nawab and Nawab Muhammad ‘Ali Khan. I do not affirm this to please them, but state it as a fact that they love me out of the desire to win the pleasure of God. I have heard the Ummul Mu’minin affirm a score of times that she deems herself my servant. Miyan Mahmud is grown up, he will tell you that he obeys me sincerely. A critic might say that he does not obey me sincerely, but I know for certain that he is truly, obedient to me, more than any one of you. All the members of Hadrat Mirza Sahib’s family obey me as ‘Alira, Fatima and ‘Abbas obeyed Abu Bakr even more so. Every one of them is so devoted to me that I cannot conceive any of them entertaining a wrong notion about me.
This speech also is interesting about the question of non Ahmadis. I was wondering if i could have the Lahore Jamaat interpretation of this?
Another question on which you differ and raise contentions is: What is the status of our opponents? Now listen carefully. The Word of God has expounded the principles with regard to the acceptance and rejection of a Prophet.
Whenever a Prophet has appeared there has been no difficulty with regard to the classification of those who believe in him and those who disbelieve. Casuistry apart, God Almighty has set forth clearly the principles of disbelief, faith and association of partners with Allah. There have been Prophets in the past. In each case there were those who believed and those who disbelieved. Have you had any doubt concerning them; and have you had any problem about the classification of those who did not believe in them? You have been told of the principles of belief and disbelief.
Hadrat Mirza Sahib (as) was a Messenger of God. Had he not applied the term Prophet to himself, he would have been guilty of rejecting the Hadith narrated in the compilation of Muslim in which the one who was to come was named a Prophet. The question of believing in him or rejecting him is clear. If one who rejects him professes to be a Muslim he is that much closer to you, as the Christians are closer to you than the Jews. In the same way the Muslims who reject Hadrat Mirza Sahib can be closer to us than the others.
Submitted by Abdul Momin.
Billy Graham, a very prominent American evangelist and who had close connections with several American Presidents, recently passed away.
Although I am not aware of anything negative that Billy Graham may have said concerning Islam, his son Franklin Graham after 9/11 once called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion".
An article about the life of Billy Graham appeared on MSN at the time of his death. In this article Billy Graham is said to have been "saved" after attending a preacher's sessions in 1934. He is then said to have made a "decision for Christ."
What is very interesting is how he felt after this conversion. The article states:
Returning home with a friend that night, Mr. Graham said, he thought: “Now I’ve gotten saved. Now whatever I do can’t unsave me. Even if I killed somebody, I can’t ever be unsaved now.”
While Billy Graham may never have killed anybody in his life, apparently being "saved" by Jesus saved him from eternal damnation, even if he killed someone. It seems that Jesus would unburden a Christian of his sin even if that person killed someone. However this concession or tolerance is not available to people of other faiths.
I do not recall ever reading that Jesus made killing of humans lawful.
Critics of Islam have widely circulated a hadith report from Bukhari to allege that when a woman, who had been badly beaten by her husband, complained to the Prophet Muhammad, he sided with her husband and told her to have sexual relations with him, and said that she could not get divorce from him despite his beating her.
I have composed a refutation of these allegations, for which please visit this link.
I am sure Muslims in general will be interested to read my article. Opponents of the Ahmadiyya Movement should be particularly interested, if their opposition to Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad springs from their love of the Holy Prophet of Islam. I would welcome any comments, corrections, suggestions for improvement, etc.
Zahid Aziz
In the issue of The Light, Lahore, English organ of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement (1st April 1944), there is an article about a book Tarikh-i Rashidi written by the Mughal conqueror of Kashmir, Mirza Haider Beg (d. 1550), stating that in this book Mirza Haider Beg mentions that certain followers of Buddha in Tibet believe in the coming of a future prophet, and he told them that the signs they mention were fulfilled in the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
I have placed the article on a separate page of this blog at this link.
After reading this article, I traced an English translation of the book online. To see the passage referred to in The Light article, please see from the third paragraph of this link.
If you are interested in the entire book, you can download it in pdf form (13 MB) from this link. For this reference see pages 415-416 of the printed book, corresponding to pages 576-577 of the pdf file.
Note that Shaká Muni mentioned in this book is a title of the Buddha. This shows that Muslims realized in the 1500s that prophets had appeared in India and that the Buddha had prophesied the advent of the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
For information on Mirza Haider Beg, see this link.
(Note on author of article in The Light: The author is one of my elders Dr Nazir-ul-Islam (Ph.D., Germany, d. 1983). I knew him in the late 1970s when he was Imam of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Centre in London. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War he served, while a student, as temporary Imam of the Berlin Mosque.)
An article by Zahid Aziz
The question of re-marriage of a divorcee in church has come under public discussion after the announcement that Prince Harry of England is to marry a divorced woman, Meghan Markle. For example, the UK newspaper Metro carried an article on 28 November 2017 entitled ‘Will Prince Harry and divorcee Meghan Markle be allowed to get married in a church?’ The Daily Express carried an article on 27 November, ‘Prince Harry CAN marry divorcee Meghan Markle at Westminster Abbey’, which began as follows:
“Question marks have been raised over whether Meghan and Prince Harry would legally be allowed to have their wedding within the Church of England as tradition dictates.”
It goes on to quote a church spokesman for Westminster Abbey who said that since 2002 “it has been possible for divorced people to be married in the Church of England”.
I have to report with regret, grief and sadness, the death of Mrs Samina Ahmed of UK, which took place on 14 December 2017. Inna lillahi wa Inna ilaihi rajioon.
She was 55 years of age and had suffered from multiple sclerosis since her youth. She was my sister, and sister of Mr Shahid Aziz.
She was married to Mr Paul Selim Ahmed, an English convert to Islam and a regular and valuable contributor to the literary work of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement (including the revision of the volume of Muhammad in World Scriptures dealing with prophecies from the Bible; see this link.)
In her prime Samina used to write articles in Lahore Ahmadiyya magazines and give talks at the UK Lahore Ahmadiyya Centre. Here are two examples of her articles: (1) The Light (Lahore), 24 April 1981, and (2) The Islamic Guardian, July-December 1983.
The photo below is from the summer of 1970 and shows Samina, with her mother Mrs Akhtar Aziz on the left, and on the right Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi (the father of Mrs Aziz):
The photo below is from September 2012, at Samina's 50th birthday:
— Zahid Aziz
This post is in further reference to the first part of my post of 2015 at this link, where I replied to the allegation that what Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad quoted as a verse of the Quran "does not exist".
There is a hadith in Sahih Bukhari, reported by Anas, whose translation by Muhsin Khan begins as follows:
Zaid bin Haritha came to the Prophet (ﷺ) complaining about his wife. The Prophet (ﷺ) kept on saying (to him), "Be afraid of Allah and keep your wife." Aisha said, "If Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) were to conceal anything (of the Qur'an) he would have concealed this Verse."
(See this link for the translation as well as the original Arabic.)
Does the statement given in this hadith, "Be afraid of Allah and keep your wife" (اتَّقِ اللَّهَ، وَأَمْسِكْ عَلَيْكَ زَوْجَكَ), occur anywhere in the Quran? According to the criterion applied to Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's writings by his opponents, no such verse exists in the Quran which contains this statement.
Of course, what this hadith is referring to is the verse 33:37 which contains the statement: "Keep your wife and be afraid of Allah" (اَمۡسِکۡ عَلَیۡکَ زَوۡجَکَ وَ اتَّقِ اللّٰہَ).
No one with any sense of fairness or having the least commonsense would say that there is any material difference between the statement as quoted in this hadith and the same statement as it occurs in the Quran.
Will our opponents allege that someone in this hadith has quoted a verse "which does not exist"? Will our opponents say, absurdly, that the Holy Prophet had actually uttered the words to Zaid "Be afraid of Allah and keep your wife", but Allah when revealing the Quran misquoted the Holy Prophet and wrongly stated that the Prophet had said: "Keep your wife and be afraid of Allah"?
It is our opponents who now need to answer these questions.
However, to introduce a little commonsense into the matter, please read below.
The Life of Muhammad is the English translation of a voluminous Arabic biography of the Holy Prophet by the late Muhammad Husein Haykal of Egypt, one of the greatest writers of modern Arabic literature, and a renowned novelist, politician and journalist. The translation was done by Ismail Ragi Al -Faruqui, a reputable scholar of Islam.
The following passage occurs in this translation:
'The eternal truth is that man does not fulfil his iman until he has desired for his fellow man that which he has loved for himself, and has acted and lived in accordance with the principle, "The worthier among you in the sight of God is the more pious, the more virtuous … Work and realize the good, for God will reckon your achievement" and you will be given exactly what you have earned.'
(Bolding is mine. Chapter Conclusion in two Essays, Essay II, p. 569. Edition published by Shorouk International of London and Cairo, 1983)
Referring to the quotation in this extract (which I gave in bold text above), the translator has added a note at this point which is as follows:
"Qur'an, 49:13; 4:106. The author does not quote these words in the manner proper to Quranic words, but uses them as his own — a perfectly permissive literary feature in Arabic. The last part of the sentence not included within quotation marks sounds Quranic in construction and phrasing, but it is not of the Qur'an. — Translator."
(Notes and References, note 15 of Essay II, p. 611).
Shown below is a screenshot of this passage from the version of this book at www.archive.org (see link):
(In my printed edition, the translator's footnotes occur as endnotes at the end of the book, and not inserted within the text in red colour as in the pdf edition above.)
Haykal has given a quotation consisting of three segments beginning respectively as follows: (1) The worthier among you… (2) Work and realize the good… (3) and you will be given …
The translator says in his note that (1) and (2) are from the Quran, taken from 49:13 and 4:106, and that (3) is not from Quran although it sounds Quranic. He says that the author is using the words of the Quran "as his own", which is "a perfectly permissive literary feature in Arabic". This is a sufficient answer to those opponents who pick out a few places from the writings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to allege, without any justification, that he has misquoted the Quran.
I may add here the following observation, as an aside, and not related to my main point.
Firstly, the translator has made an error in giving reference to 4:106. The verse of the Quran corresponding to the words "Work and realize the good, for God will reckon your achievement" is, in fact, 9:105.
Secondly, as regards segment (3) of Haykal's quotation ("and you will be given…"), I have looked up Haykal's original Arabic book and display from it below the image of the relevant text (this book is also available at www.archive.org and the text below is on p. 558-559):
Haykal's words in Arabic are: Wa lā tujzauna illā mā kuntum taksibūn.
I think this is a mixing of 36:54: Wa lā tujzauna illā mā kuntum ta‛lamūn ("you are only recompensed for what you did").
with 10:52: Hal tujzauna illā bi-mā kuntum taksibūn ("you are only recompensed for what you earned").
It is perfectly legitimate to say that, in this final case too, Haykal is quoting from the Quran, even though he has substituted a word from 10:52 into 36:54.
A bust of Mr M.A. Jinnah has been unveiled today at the British Museum, London, by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. It has been conceived and funded by the government of Pakistan, as stated by the Pakistan ambassador in the clip. The sculptor is Philip Jackson, a famous British sculptor.
I recorded this news item from the BBC News Channel just before 4 pm today, 29 November 2017, and have made it available at this link.
(If the clip starts playing without sound, please click on the clip and the sound should then play.)