I was a bit surprised when I first read in this article that the Hadith: “The learned ones amongst my followers shall be like the prophets of the Israelites,” was not in any of the collection of hadith, and that the Pakistani Ulema had tried to even deny it as a hadith altogether.

Whenever I saw this Hadith being quoted by HMGA in his books, it had a familiar ring to it. This is because when I was in the sixth grade (if my memory serves me right) our Islamiyat teacher told us that the Holy Prophet in a hadith stated “My Ulema shall be like the prophets of Bani Israel.” This happened when I used to live in the former East Pakistan.

Previously, whenever I found this Hadith being quoted by HMGA, I used to wonder if some of the Sunni Ulema were conceited enough to think that this Hadith referred to them -since it contains the word Ulema- and whether they actually thought that they resembled the prophets of Bani Isreal.

As the Sunni Ulema in Bangladesh are not any different in beliefs compared to their Pakistani brethren, I wonder if this denial on the part of the Pakistani religious scholars was solely for the purpose of opposing the Ahmadis, or was it just plain ignorance on their part.