The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Whether Qadianis are kafir or they are not kafir is a matter between Allah and the Qadianis. In 1913, when a Maulana of the Sunni Muslims asked Hazrat Maulana Nur-ud-Din if he considered him a Muslim (i.e. if Maulana Nur-ud-Din considered that Sunni Maulana to be a Muslim), Maulana Nur-ud-Din published the following reply:

“If a man considers himself to be a Muslim, then please tell me what right I have to say to him: You are not a Muslim? Am I ‘Knower of what is in the hearts’? No, certainly not. Do I control entry to paradise and hell? Certainly not. I have in mind the words [of Hadith]: ‘Did you cut open his heart?’”

Mr Rizwan Jamil, since you have been discussing what kinds of laws an Islamic state can enact, I assume what you mean is whether an Islamic state can make a law in which Qadianis are declared as non-Muslim.

The issue of ‘Who is a Muslim’ in Islamic law (as applied in this world) can easily be determined from the Holy Quran, Hadith, Fiqh, and the writings of many ancient and modern Ulama. For details please see this link.

First you argued that an Islamic state must have a law prohibiting blasphemy. Then you widened this to say that an Islamic state must ban other religions from preaching. I presume now you are saying that an Islamic state is duty bound to declare Qadianis as non-Muslim. I am wondering whether your argument will now proceed as follows.

Since you are asking us “aren’t Qadianis kafir?”, if we say “no”, your argument will be that Lahore Ahmadiyya members are kafir because they don’t consider Qadianis as kafir. Then you will argue that Lahore Ahmadiyya members cannot preach “their religion” in an Islamic state because they are non-Muslims, so their literature must be banned. From that you may well proceed to find some “blasphemy” in LAM literature and argue that Lahore Ahmadi writers including Zahid Aziz should be prosecuted for blasphemy in an Islamic state. Is that your goal?

The books you have mentioned are available online. If the pdf files are too large, you can download them once to a local copy.

Fazl-ul-Bari

Muhammad in World Scriptures, various editions

“Dr. Abdul Haq Vidyarthi” : He did not have the title “Dr”. This is misunderstanding of those publishers who have pirated this book.

It is interesting that pirated editions of our books are sometimes openly available in book stores in Pakistan!

Coming to the topic… I have read through your link about “Who is a Muslim”. It was a good one and really informative.
 
We know that the expressions of faith is of two types; Iman-e-Majmal and Iman-e-Mufassal. The former is simply the Kalima while the latter includes different fundamentals of faith viz. the belief in Allah, in His Messengers, in His Books, in His Angels and in the Hereafter. I also agree that one becomes a Muslim when he expresses his faith in Iman-e-Majmal, but what I also believe is that during this expression of his faith it is assumed for him that he does not also deny any of the fundamentals of Iman-e-Mufassal. So he is called a Muslim by the mere expression of Iman-e-Majmal while the explicit expression of Iman-e-Mufassal is not required for him to become a Muslim (on the assumption that he also does not deny any of the fundamentals contained in it).
 
So after becoming a Muslim i.e. expressing his faith in Iman-e-Majmal, when he denies any of the fundamentals of Iman-e-Mufassal, he is called apostate (murtadd) i.e. the one who turns away from Islam after accepting it.

The belief in prophets or the belief in the concept of prophethood is one of the fundamentals of Islam and includes the belief in the finality of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w as well. The concept of prophethood itself holds the idea that as the religion of Allah i.e. Islam is now complete, Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. is thus the last of the prophets, raised for the unification of the whole of mankind. The Qadianis belief in the continuation of prophethood after Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. is thus a clear violation of this fundamental of faith i.e. the belief in prophethood. This way Qadianis are called apostates, and for that very fact, kafirs.
 
What is your opinion on that?
 
NOTE:
I also know that Lahori Ahmadis criticize the Sunni’s belief of the “finality of prophethood in the sense that no new prophet can come after Prophet Muhammad s.a.w”. But I would like you to ignore this debate, of the coming of old or new prophet, for this topic that we are discussing right now regarding Qadianis.
 
Thank You!

I posted a comment sometime ago on this blog from the archived lahore ahmadiyya discussion forum regarding this issue Rizwan has brought up.

So, if I may, I’d like to restate it here:

I had once posed the following question (08/23/01)

“I make a public declaration in this house of God, the mosque, that I believe in the finality of prophethood of the Last of the Prophets(may peace and the blessings of God be upon him), and that I consider the person who denies the finality of prophethood to be a faithless man and one outside the pale of Islam.” (Manifesto, copied in Din al-Haq, p.29)

Since the Ahmadis of the Qadian Jamaat believe that the Promised Messiah laid claim to prophethood, even if subordinate to the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw), would that then make them Kafir according to the Promised Messiah’s own words?

If this is the position that the Promised Messiah took, do the Lahori Ahmadi’s then today regard the Ahmadi’s of the Qadian Jamaat to be Kafir?

Brother Zahid Aziz gave the following elucidating reply:

Not this question, but a similar one regarding those Muslims who believe in the coming again of Jesus, was asked during the course that I gave recently at Columbus after our convention (as the title of my course was “Who is a Muslim according to Islamic Shariah?”).

The answer is that whether it is those Sunnis who believe that Jesus will come again after the Holy Prophet Muhammad, or the AMI (Qadiani) members, what they say is that they do not deny the finality of prophethood. The former give an expalnation of how Jesus can come without infringing the finality of prophethood, and the latter also explain how HMGA could be a prophet without infringing the finality of prophethood.

We may disagree with their explanation, but in determining whether someone is a Muslim, what matters is what they themselves say in explicit terms as to what they believe (however illogical it might be), and not what someone else says is the implication of their belief (however right that may be).

As neither Sunnis nor AMI members say, in explicit words, that they deny the finality of prophethood, in fact they say they believe in it, therefore they don’t come under this stricture by Hazrat Mirza sahib quoted by you.

I gave another example when answering this question. Many Muslims indulge in some practices (e.g. praying at tombs of saints to those saints) that amount to a denial of “There is no God but Allah”. But they still proclaim with their tongues “La ilaha ill-Allah”. Therefore they cannot be called as unbelievers and outside the fold of Islam. If a person who otherwise calls himself a Muslim but holds a belief or does an act whose consequence is that he denies a teaching of Islam, that is a matter for Allah to judge, and for us to try to correct him. But we are not entitled to expel him from the fold of Islam as he does not directly deny a basic of Islam.

Dear Dr. Zahid!
 
Before replying to your post I want to ask you that is Kalima the only “asal” in Islam while everything else is included in “furu”?