Khilafat versus coming prophets: Questions by Mohammed Iqbal
Admin’s Note:I am starting here a separate post about the points raised by Mr Mohammed Iqbal in another thread which he addressed to Shabeeb Haneef. That discussion can be conducted here separately, without interferring with the one there.
Below are the points which Mohammed Iqbal sahib made in his comments, in order. (Zahid Aziz.)
Ahmadiyya Jamat Qadiani has taken two different positions re new Prophets. They are:
1) Position 1 (P1):
Prophets will come. In fact even thousands of them can. This is the position famously taken by Khalifa 2 and highlighted by this blog time and time again. What is more a prophet could come “even today”(which means Khalifa2 will relinquish his Khilafat and follow him unless the new incumbent happens to be himself.).
2) Position 2 (P2):
Yes, Prophets can come, but only in theory. But in practice, no prophet or even mujaddids will come, since the divinely ordained Khilafat has been firmly placed in the saddle. It will last for a 1000 years. This millenium long chain of Caliphs negates the need for a new prophet or reformer. So any new claimants to any divine office is ipso facto an impostor.
P2 is nowadays proclaimed from every pulpit and in private conversations very shrilly as well as in print. The reasons for my questions was to find out which of these two positions you have taken. If you hold P1, you should investigate the claims of the new claimants and certainly you are well within your right to have made e-mail exchanges with MAA (and spoken on the phone with another). And if it was as a result of your interaction with MAA, that led to the conclusion that he was he was bogus, you should tell the world about it. Dont you have a duty to inform his followers in your place about it? On the other hand if you hold P2, your interactions with them was just a waste. The purpose would only be to mock and ridicule. This was the point I was trying to make. My reasons were not to secretly scrutinize your actions as you put it. Nor do I think I need to know you personally to reply to your blog. As for running to MAA sahib and accepting him, make no mistake about it, Shabeeb. I will do exactly that, if my investigations into his claims lead me to it. But right now I am in a dilemma. Should I hold P1 and start investigating or as per P2 reject him forthwith? Kindly advise.
I was highlighting the two contradictory positions taken by Q jamaat regarding the coming of new prophets. According to P1, prophethood is wide open even today. As per P2, it is bye,bye..”Wahy-al-Nubuwwah” for now, see you after 12000 new moons! I wanted Shabeeb to tell me which of these two positions Shabeeb holds. I only wanted to answer this question in the light of his interactions with the new claimants. For obvious reasons they have shelved P1 and proclaiming only P2, from all conceivable platforms. I wanted Shabeeb to see the contradictions in these two stands. It was very much the subject matter of our discussion. Shabeeb,FYI, I am not a follower of MAA or any new claimants. I am not follower of QJ or LAM for that matter. Yes, I have a great deal of respect for HMGA, but unlike his followers I dont hold him to be infallible. Anyway I thank the moderators of this blog for not accusing me of straying off the subject. My next questions to you is if this Khilafat is so powerful as to exclude the coming of a new prophet or even Mujaddids, why give it only a lifespan of 1000 years. Who fixed this period? Why will it not “abide with you forever”, unlike the ‘comforter’ of Jesus or the ‘Qudrath-al Thaniyya’ of HMGA?What will happen after this period? Will there be a barrage of Prophets?
Dear Shabib,
You haven’t answered my question. Can prophets come today or is their coming held in abeyance for a 1000 years, the predicted lifespan for the present Caliphate?
From Zahid Aziz:
In May 2005 Mirza Masroor Ahmad sahib delivered a khutba to emphasise that the Qadiani khilafat shall be “ever-lasting”. Interestingly, he says that the reason for his khutba was that some persons in his Jamaat had reprinted an article by Mirza Bashir Ahmad (brother of Khalifa 2) in which he had written that the Qadiani khilafat (just like the khilafat-i Rashida) would remain in its pure Islamic form only under the first four khalifas, and after that it would decline and degenerate.
At that time I wrote a refutation of Mirza Masroor Ahmad’s arguments, which is at this link.
From Mohammed Iqbal:
@Zahid Azeez
For MMA the Khilafat may be everlasting, but to Kerala Ahmadies it is not. They give it only a 1000 year guarantee. Though a very long time, it is not eternity. This means the papacy which began with St. Peter is superior to it because it has already endured 2000 years and still going strong. Also argued by the Q Ahmadies is that no claimant to the divine office will arise during this period. So much for KQ2’s argument that 1000’s of prophets can arise now and may arise “even now”!