The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

17th century English author, Dr Henry Stubbe, writes in defence of Islam

In a recent issue of Paigham Sulh, the Lahore Ahmadiyya Urdu organ, for March 2017, an article has been reproduced from the same paper of a hundred years ago (Paigham Sulh, 17 January 1917) about a writing of an Englishman, around the years 1670s, which is possibly the earliest defence of Islam penned in the West. The 1917 article itself appears to be taken from some other publication.

The name of the Englishman was not easy to identify due to being transcribed in Urdu, and appears as "Dr Henry Astab". After pondering for a while, I realized that the "A" could be the addition in Urdu to an English word, since English words beginning with the letter "s" are prefixed with an "alif" when spelt in Urdu. For example, the word "school" becomes "eskool" in Urdu. I have even heard Urdu speakers say they are suffering from "estress" when they mean they are under "stress".

Anyhow, after realizing the redundancy of the "A" of "Astab", I very quickly through a Google search identified the name as Dr Henry Stubbe, born in 1631. (His name is sometimes given as Stubbs.) The name of the writing is An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism. I called it as a "writing" rather than "book" because he left it as a manuscript which, after passing through several owners, was published in 1911 by 'The Islamic Society', London. It was edited by one Hafiz Mahmud Khan Shairani (d. 1946), a linguist and poet who was a lecturer at Punjab University Lahore.

You can read this book here (pdf file, 14 MB)

The editor also added an introduction, a brief life of Dr Stubbe and an appendix.

I understand there has been recent further research into the original manuscript. There is a 2014 publication, Henry Stubbe and the beginnings of Islam — The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism, edited by Nabil Matar, Columbia University Press.

(The spelling Originall is not a typo, but the spelling of the 17th century. In the 1911 publication also, in the text of the manuscript you may be puzzled by the 17th century spellings of various words such as: beleive, authentick, publick.)

To show a flavour of the book, I quote below the beginning of the last chapter of the manuscript:

"It is a vulgar Opinion that 'Mahomet propagated his Doctrine by the sword,' and not only compelled the Arabians at first to receive his Religion, but obliged his Successors by a perpetual Vow or Precept to endeavour the Extirpation of Christianity and all other Religions, thereby to render his own universal. But how generally soever this be beleived, and how great men soever they bee who support it, yet is it no other then a palpable Mistake." (p. 180)

In other words, it is commonly held that Muhammad propagated his religion by the sword and taught Muslims to do so as well, and to destroy Christianity and all other religions until only Islam remains. But however prevalent this belief may be, and regardless of the greatness of the men who hold it, it is nothing other than a clear mistake.

— Zahid Aziz

Request for prayers

The daughter of a UK Jamaat member and good friend of mine (related to the late Mr N.A. Faruqui) is having a medical procedure for a very serious condition. Please pray that Allah grants the treatment to be successful and grants her a full recovery. Ameen.

Zahid Aziz

Pakistan newspaper headline: “Mardan university student lynched by mob over alleged blasphemy: police”

At this link to the Pakistan newspaper Dawn you can read more details of this ghastly incident:

"A 23-year-old student of Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan was killed and another seriously injured by a vigilante mob for allegedly "publishing blasphemous content online", local police said Thursday."

It appears he was not an Ahmadi, although he was accused of being one.

Recently, anti-Ahmadiyya zealots have been saying that attacks on Ahmadis in Pakistan are entirely the fault of Ahmadis themselves, because they provoke the innocent Muslims of Pakistan by their preaching. So what about such incidents, where a person who is not an Ahmadi is killed by a mob for publishing "blasphemous" content? Using the same argument, this would be entirely the fault of this student for causing provocation by his online comments, and therefore the mob was justified in killing him!

In fact, the anti-Ahmadiyya zealots and obsessives might call this killing as the fault of Ahmadis. They will say that, since Ahmadis exist, it means there is room for someone to be wrongly identified as an Ahmadi, and to be wrongly killed! The killers are justified as long as they truly and genuinely believe that the person they are killing is an Ahmadi.

It can be imagined that the anti-Ahmadiyya activists will now be saying that if all Ahmadis are eliminated, which might involve also killing many non-Ahmadis by mistake, then no longer will any person be mistakenly thought to be an Ahmadi! A further benefit would be that those non-Ahmadis killed by mistake would acquire the status of shaheed!

Maulana Muhammad Ali on completing the revision of his English translation of the Quran for the 1951 edition

After completing this revision, Maulana Muhammad Ali delivered a khutba which I have translated at this link.

Some interesting excerpts are given below:

"Reading the Quran illuminates your heart, but this depends on the concentration with which you read this word of God. The more you concentrate on it, and the deeper you go into it, the more it will enter your heart. This can be made clearer by the following example. Just as pearls are found in the depths of the oceans, likewise the boundless treasures of knowledge contained in the Quran, which will continue to be unfolded till the Day of Judgment, are to be found in the depths of the meanings of its words. It is an ocean that no one is denied access to, but to obtain those valuable pearls from it, which give us light to solve our problems, is dependent on how much effort and exertion we put in for their acquisition….

I must tell you that the true knowledge of the Holy Quran has in this age been disclosed particularly to your Jama‘at, and this blessing is in reality due to that man at whose feet we gained this knowledge. He set us on the right path. To gain true knowledge, a balanced mind is required, and it is the blessing of God that this Jama‘at has maintained its mental equilibrium. This is why the Promised Messiah’s intellectual heritage has passed to this small Jama‘at.

It is perfectly true that we accepted Hazrat Mirza sahib as Mujaddid, as Mahdi and as the Messiah. However, we never accepted him as one to be followed blindly. We used to differ with him sometimes. The Nawab of Mongrol felt much attraction and love for this Movement. To a large extent he believed the Ahmadiyya Movement to be true. When once we were with him, a Maulvi tried to incite him against us and said to him: ‘These people whom you respect and honour so much, who believe Mirza sahib to be the Promised Messiah, they have differences with their own Promised Messiah; he did not believe that Jesus was born of a father, but these people believe he had a father.’

The Nawab sahib put this question to me. I replied that this just shows that we have not accepted the Promised Messiah without thinking, but after thinking and understanding, with open eyes, which are still open. The Promised Messiah has declared the Holy Quran to be supreme over everything. So if we see something clearly in the Quran, then in a secondary matter we consider it permissible to hold a different interpretation from the Promised Messiah, provided it is supported by strong arguments. We have learnt the Quran from the Promised Messiah but he did not shut the doors of knowledge upon us; rather, he opened them.

Therefore, it is no sin to differ, even with the greatest of persons. Of course, one cannot differ with the founder of the religion, the Holy Prophet Muhammad. After him, one can differ with anyone from Hazrat Abu Bakr to Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The concept that such differences are not allowed caused Muslims to become stagnant. Prior to that, the Muslims were racing on the path of progress, in terms of both knowledge and deeds. They led the world in all aspects of life. But when this nation got stuck in the mire of taking religious leaders “for lords besides Allah” (the Quran, 9:31), it went into decline."

USA — a land granted to the Saint-of-Allah, i.e. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri

In Muslims there is a concept that when Allah (SWT) appoints His Saints (Auliya), He grants them a piece of land in which they preach their teachings and propagate Holy Quran and explain its finer points to his followers. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad sahib once said that modern means of communication were invented for him. In fact, he wrote this several times.

Professor Dr. Khalid Omar, real name Hibbatul Abdul Mannan Omar, grandson of Maulana Noor-ud-Din, delivered Jumma Khutaba in Black American Muslims, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed faction largest mosque near Capitol Hill (US Congress and Senate). He explained fine points of Holy Quran.

The Importance of Qu’ran :Dr Omar Hibbi

Masjid Muhammad. The Nation’s Mosque, Home Page.

‘The Early Legacies of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement in America’ by Patrick Bowen, Ph.D.

This is a speech delivered at the annual gathering of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore last December, in Lahore, Pakistan, via Skype.

It is well and deeply researched with much new and interesting information.

It will also help the blind opponents of the Ahmadiyya Movement who lurch from one extreme to the opposite. First they say that the Ahmadiyya Movement supported Western imperialism and called on Muslims to be submissive and servile to "the white man". Then they allege that the Ahmadiyya Movement was responsible for creating a Black organization in the US which taught that "the white man" was the devil. The behaviour of these opponents is either due to hyprocrisy or mental derangement.

Translation of ‘British Government and Jihad’ now online

Here is the online version of the translation of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's book British Government and Jihad. 

You can also obtain it as a Kindle book from Amazon: USA, UK, Australia, etc.

The original Urdu book was first published in the year 1900.

Here are some extracts from it:

“Anyone who has eyes and reads the narrations in Hadith and looks at the Quran can realize it quite well that this form of jihad, which many savage-like people are pursuing, is not the jihad taught by Islam. In fact, these are criminal acts which are done through the arousal of base passions or in the vain hope of attaining paradise … Can it be a virtuous deed that there is a man going about in the market place, we have no connection with him so much so that we do not know his name and he does not know our name, but despite this we fire a gunshot at him intending to kill him? Is this religious behaviour?…

Can such a religion be from God which teaches that if you go on randomly murdering innocent, blameless people, who know nothing of your faith, you will enter Paradise? It is a matter of great regret and shame that we could open fire, without reason or concern, on a man with whom we have no previous enmity, in fact we do not even know him, while he is purchasing something from a shop for his children or is busy in some other lawful errand, and in an instant render his wife a widow and his children orphans and turn his home into a place of mourning. In which hadith or verse of Quran is it so written? Is there any Muslim priest who can answer this question? ” (p. 10-11)

Supporters of Mumtaz Qadri commemorate first anniversary of his execution

At this link (starting at 34:35) you can view a report on the BBC programme Newsnight (1st March 2017) about the above subject from Pakistan.

His shrine is shown, where one visitor says that Mumtaz Qadri was a saint and he is visiting the shrine because one's sins can be forgiven by Allah through the mediation of Mumtaz Qadri.

Zahid Aziz

Services to Muslims of NWFP by prominent Lahore Ahmadi, Dr Mirza Yauqb Baig, mentioned in history book

S.M. Ikram has written several books on the history of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent in Urdu and English. In one of his books, Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan, he has mentioned the services to Muslims of the North-West Frontier Province by Dr Mirza Yaqub Baig in 1930. This book is also available as a reprint in India with the following title page:

I have extracted the two relevant pages and marked the passages that I am referring to by red lines in the margin. See this link.

(Note: The "Isemonger, I.G. Police" referred to in the footnote was Frederick Charles Isemonger.)

The same events are also mentioned in the Urdu biography of Dr Mirza Yaqub Baig, Ainah-i Sidq o Sifa. See the relevant pages at this link. The details in the two accounts corroborate and complement each other. 

Zahid Aziz

“Islam ‘not sustainable’ in its current form and must ‘reshape’ to modern values, says religious expert”

An item under the above heading appears in The Independent newspaper of the UK. See this link.

"Currently, Islam is unfortunately a religion of isolation. A religion of migration. A religion of Turkey, of Saudi Arabia. But no religion of Europe, which advocates pluralism or prepares children accordingly for a plural society.

… European countries must lead the way in helping to amend the reputation of Islam, as certain Middle Eastern and African nations lacked the democratic freedoms necessary for such a debate.

Unfortunately, this is not possible in Islamic countries. They simply cannot lead this debate in Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia".