100th anniversary of the arrival of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din in England
24th September 1912 was the day when Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din arrived in England for the first time. During this first visit, which lasted till August 1914, he established “The Islamic Review” monthly journal and the Woking Muslim Mission in 1913.
As the website creator and maintainer of the website www.wokingmuslim.org I felt it my duty to mark the 100th anniversary of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din’s arrival. I have compiled an 8-page commemorative leaflet, with a 4-page insert of photographs that can go inside the leaflet, for this occasion. I hope it is interesting and informative.
Zahid Aziz
23rd September 2012
From ikram:
Thank you, Dr. Aziz, for keeping alive the memory of Khwaja Kamal-ud-din, the standard bearer of Islam in the West. Each line and every paragraph of his pen is worth preserving. Below are some of my personal favorite excerpts from the writings of “Khwaja” (as he was lovingly known amongst his peers, his friends and admirers). May Allah bless his soul and may Allah re-incarnate him for our times.
“Religion without solution is a myth and fable, and of no consequence to mankind.” – Pillars of Faith in Islam by Khwaja Kamal ud din, p. 16
“Religion, if from God, must come to us for the sole purpose of putting us on the path of progress.” – A Letter from Khwaja Kamal ud din, Islamic Review, Vol. XIX, Nos. 3&4, March-April 1931
“Astronomical truth, as currently accepted, leaves no room for a geographical Heaven.” – Hints to Study of the Quran, by Khwaja Kamal-ud-din, Islamic Review and Muslim India, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 & 4, March – April 1930, p. 93
“Pure monotheism would go to the real Fountain Head of all light, but the polytheistic tendency, innate in an undeveloped mind, would blight its judgment and benight its reasoning. Man would take the agent for the principal, the husk for the kernel, the effect for the cause, and the immediate for the ultimate. This psychology creates polytheism. All forms of “isms,” ranging from fetishism to Man-worship, thrive under it.” – Islam and Zoroastrianism by Khwaja Kamal ud din, p. 18
“If a book claims to come from God, let it prove the existence of God itself. Let it advocate its own cause. And this peculiar feature I found only in the Qur’ân. Whatever it asserts or teaches, it does not look to its votaries to have its tenets and principles substantiated.” – Existence of God by by Khwaja Kamal ud din, Islamic Review, p. 215, Vol. VI, No. 5, May 1918
“Had we discovered all the laws of Nature and respected them, everything would have gone to our satisfaction, and we would have been saved from the burden of religion.” – The Quranic Concept of Religion, by Khwaja Kamal ud din, Islamic Review, Vol. XIX, No. 5, May 1931
“Qur’ânic words are too rich in their significations…we need not give them new meanings, nor reinterpret them to satisfy new demands of life. Their connotations are wide enough to denote every new concept…They may become amplified, but on the material already existing.” – Introduction to Study of The Holy Quran, by Khwaja Kamaluudin, pp. 20-21
“…The message came in the form of the Qur’ân which is actually a commentary on these Names [of Allah]. The Book may thus be divided into seven parts:
(1) Allah standing as the central figure in the Qur’ân.
(2) His hundred attributes.[or his Names]
(3) Virtues and Sins. The former are the shadows of these names, cast by our activities, while the latter are sins engendered when we violate their sanctity.
(4) Qur’ânic laws that are meant to develop the said virtues, or, in other words, to enable us to translate these Names into our actions.
(5) Heaven or Hell. Heaven is the abode of those who clothe themselves with the Divine attributes, while Hell will be inhabited by those who act contrary to these Names.
(6) Reference to certain phenomena of nature in order to elucidate some of these Names, as we read of Rahman and Rahim in the Qur’ân (2:163-164).
(7) The Book refers to certain righteous persons and also speaks of certain wicked ones. This classification also is due to the attributes.”
– The Muslim Conception of Worship, pp. 5-6, by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din
“These sacred words sum up the religion of man. They give quite a new conception of it. They neither speak of prayers nor of offerings nor of sacrifice. To please God or appease an angered Deity, or to create reconciliation between the Creator and the created are not the objectives of religion as set forth in the above quotation. It speaks of something quite different. It refers to our own nature and its various latent constituents. To work them out is our objective, and the way to work them out is the religion revealed to man from the Most High.” – Explanation of verse 30:30 by Khwaja Kamal ud Din – Message of Islam, Appendix: Religion of Nature
“Everything in the world appears to have been enchained by the Law. It follows it implicitly Is it then other than Allah’s religion that they seek (to follow), and to Him submits whoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him shall they be returned? (3:82). Nature discloses regularity, precision, punctuality, knowledge, power, command, intellect, preordination, prearrangement, precaution, and several other features that are the possessions of the mind exclusively. In their presence the universe cannot be taken as the outcome of accident; It needs an intelligent Design to precede the process of its creation. The word design is sometimes used to bore minds with skeptical tendencies, but it now carries wider connotation. It brings within it so many facts and figures recently discovered by Science that disbelief in God would amount to ignorance.” [Note: “intelligent Design” referred to here has no relation to contemporary evolution debate] – Introduction to Study of The Holy Quran, by Khwaja Kamaluudin, p. 21
“True Science and true Theology are one and the same. One reveals the Laws of God working in the various manifestations of the Universe, on the physical plane; the other discloses the same Laws at work in the Moral and Spiritual sphere. All these laws emanate from the same First Intelligent Cause, and cannot, therefore, admit of any mutual discrepancy.” – Islam and Zoroastrianism by Khwaja Kamaluddin, p. 91
“A person with an atheistic turn of mind cannot but admit the essential reasonableness of the Qur-ánic Theology. The ‘God’ of the Qur-án is the ‘God’ of Nature. If the working of Nature disclose a reign of law, which demands implicit obedience to it from all the component parts of the Universe, and if different forms of the law exhibit different characters and features of that Great Mind, Who is admittedly working behind the scene, it is not difficult to arrive at some of the conceivable attributes of the First Intelligent Cause; and a true theology must reveal them.” – Islam and Zoroastrianism by Khwaja Kamaluddin, p. 93
“If progress and uplift from the lower to the higher order may rightly be seen as the main object for which religion was given to man, there seems to exist hardly anything in Nature which is without the same. Look to the open book of Nature; the same story of progress and enfoldment is written on its every page in bold letters. Everything in the universe is on its way to sublimation. “From the seedling to the mighty oak, from a sea-shell to a cathedral, and from a genitals seed to a full-grown man, progress and development is the order in the universe with no retrogression, no retracement of steps once taken, and no transmigration to lower stages.” – Religion of Nature: Lecture by Khwaja Kamal-ud-din, at University Institute, Calcutta: Hon. Justice Chaudri, Judge of Calcutta High Court, In the Chair, Islamic Review and Muslim India, Vols. VIII, No. 6-7, June-July 1921, p. 257
“The essence of religion consists in the development of our potentialities by balancing our passions and impulses into ethics and morality and to sublimate morality again into what is called the soul. Religion came to evolve our physical nature into spirituality.” – “League of Faith: A Message From Islam” excerpted from address by Khwaja Kamal-ud-din, B.A. LLB, delivered at Victoria Public Hall, Madras, India on February 25, 1920 as quoted in Islamic Review and Muslim India, Vol. VIII, No. 5, May 1920, p. 186
“Devotion to the spirit of “mine” is animality. Maintenance of “mine” and “thine” is morality and conversion of “ mine “ into “ thine “ is spirituality. In other words, to think of yourself at the discount of others is animality, to think equally of others is morality, but to think of others at your discount is spirituality. Be in the world, but be at the same time out of it, and this will bring you to the highest stage of spirituality. So Muhammad did, and so he recommended others to do. You cannot afford to leave the world, you have not done so. Reaching this stage, man enters into God’s heaven in this very world. With such men of advanced soul, merits and deserts of others carry no weight. Like God, they know no, distinction between man and man. Proceeds of their labour reach others without any merits on the part of the latter. In this stage man becomes real servant of Rahman, the beneficent God, whose benevolence goes to every person without deserts, as the meaning of the word Rahman signifies. Here he begins to clothe himself with God’s attributes. His words and actions assume God’s colour Sibgatulla as the Qur-án terms it.” – Philosophy of Islam by Khwaja Kamal-ud-din, Islamic Review and Muslim India, Vol. VIII, No. 10, Oct 1920, p. 357
“In Nature things become energetic when facing their antagonists, so do we need some enemy to arouse our moral forces which otherwise would remain dormant. Thus Satan clearly ranks on the moral plane with the toxins of the physical plane. We find in the Qur’ân the same functions assigned to him as are allotted to toxins in the physical kingdom. Like them he introduces himself within us from outside. He acts as an enemy, and weakens our sense of morality and tries to destroy it. But if our moral nature asserts itself strongly enough and we follow the laws of God we become immune from all sin. The Devil, then, like toxins sub-serves a moral end. The two poisons, I mean toxins and Satan, assail our health and spirit on identical lines. Evil works on the same lines as those adopted by Satan according to the description of the Qur’ân. They are, indeed, one and the same. The only thing left to decide is whether it is the perversity of our own mind that we call Satan or is it some personality existent in the external world, who invites the mind to evil. In other words is Satan a mere faculty or a being who inspires us to use our faculties for evil?” – Satan: A Moral Necessity by Khwaja Kamal-ud-din, pp. 6-7, Woking Muslim Mission and Literary Trust, The Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, Surrey, England. This article is also attributed to K. Kudos in Islamic Review, pp. 324-5, Vol XX, No. 10, October 1932, Woking Muslim Mission and Muslim Literary Trust.
“If the Religion taught in the book is a husk and a garb, if it is dogma and formu1ae, if it is sacrament and priest craft, a symbolism and rituals, and if it hinges upon the personality of its teacher and revolves on certain supposed events in his lifetime, it is not religion but superstition and myth. It is transitory, a fog which cannot stand in the strong rays of the sun of rationality. But if a religion gives you certain broad principles of life to meet your physical, moral, and, spiritual needs, and makes utility to mankind the criteria of ethical virtues and leaves the rest to your judicial discretion and good common sense, while appealing always to your reason for the acceptance of its tenets, it hardly hampers your progress. It, on the other hand, helps your uplift. That such principles have been revealed to man from God, and have been codified, cannot impede our advancement. If axioms and postulates revealed to Euclid have only helped our activities in our mathematical researches, why a broad-basic principle-laying religion can[not] create a moral and ethical inertia. Has not science made progress with bounds and strides, and did it not take place only after we based our researches on certain basic principles? If so we find in every avenue of human activities, why not in the realm of religion?” – Free Religious Movement, Islamic Review and Muslim India , Vol. IV, No. 12, December 1916, p. 561
From An Ahmadi scholar:
@ lahoris
If you know so much about the Woking mosque why dont you tell us how the Lahoris lost it?
Why dont you tell us the role that Bashir Ahmad Misri played in taking it from the Lahoris?
Weren’t you there when it happened?
How is it possible that Bashir Ahmad Misri was even elected as Imam?
From Zahid Aziz:
Lahoris never possessed the Woking Mosque. When Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din had the Trust created to control the mosque in 1913, none of the 3 or 4 Trustees were Lahoris. From 1953 onwards, the Pakistan High Commissioner in U.K. (i.e. ambassador) has been the Chairman of the Mosque Trustees.
Is it your allegation that I have never published anything about B.A. Misri and the removal of the Woking Mission from the Mosque, or are you asking a question?
I was a teenager at the time (in answer to your question).
As to B.A. Misri’s appointment, obviously it was due to our tolerant policy. If the accusation is that Lahoris were trying to “please” other Muslims, then one could, of course, talk about the loss of Qadian and of Rabwah, which were under tight Khilafat control. Trying to please the British government of India in the first case, and trying to please Bhutto’s government in the second case, didn’t prevent “loss” of Qadian and then of Rabwah.
Our “loss” at Woking is exactly like the loss of the tolerant, non-sectarian Pakistan created by Mr. Jinnah to the fundamentalist Muslims who control it today. The same wind swept over us.
From ikram:
Since the “Ahmadi Scholar” is reflective of Qadiani scholarship, the following quote of Khwaja Kamaluddin can be squarely applied to Qadianis who believe that their Khalifa is the “chosen” one, hence he is above errors and each and every self-serving whim of his is to be accepted as God ordained. If the Khilafat is not interjecting polytheism in Qadianis then what is?
Woking mosque then belonged to Muslims as now. It was not a private possession of Khwaja or of “Lahoris,” but was under a public trust. The only difference now is that the Mosque would not hear the voices and thoughts of the likes of Kamaluddin, Pickthall, Lovegrove, Headley etc. in its four walls for the mere fact that Mujaddid of the last century does not dwell in the minds of its intolerants supplicants.
Similarly, Islam is not a private ownership of Qadianis, rather it is open to public. But, the problem with Qadianis is that one has to “convert” to their side before they will accept others as Muslims. The Qadiani day starts and ends with the rosary count of number of Chanda payers and number of mosques. The other day I happened to research for some topic and scanned their online library. The only scholarship worth mentioning that one comes across is a few writings of Zafarullah Khan (may Allah be pleased with him). I am witness to QK-IV, late Tahir Ahmad who replied to a question about future Mujaddids. He responded by a challenge as to “How can a Mujaddid advent, while Khalifat is present?” What he was telling his audience was that while Khilafat is ongoing in Qadianiat, no person of significance will emerge from its rank and file as well. How true.
Parallel example of Qadiani doctrine is that of Libya where it was an implied state policy to suppress any person of significance to emerge over Qaddafi. For forty long years we do no hear of any academic, writer, poet, artist or sports figure from Libya. Same is with Qadianis where Zafarullah Khan was sidelined when his significance challenged the Khalifas.
One wonders with such a “huge” following running into hundreds of millions, no viable literature barring a few translations of Quran came out of the followers of the Promised Messiah. Factually, the Messiah himself wrote more than the millions of Qadianis combined. If the same Messiah were to reincarnate today, he might ask for a Messiah for himself to overcome his disgust about Qadianis whose central doctrine revolves around the “Man-Worship” of Khalifas that Kamaluddin prophetically wrote above. The irony is that Kamaluddin in his writings is addressing the non-Muslims, but in reality his above quote also fits the Qadianis equally well by their own efforts.
Bodily, Kamaluddin and all his peers perished but those (righteous deeds), his writings, his speeches, his Jihad by pen and his missionary works that still are and will remain as treasures for Islamic thought.
From Rashid:
@Ikram:
Qadianis have firm belief that their Khalifa is made by God (Khalifa Khuda Banata Hay).
They remind me of Hindus who have firm belief that their Hanuman (Monkey-god) is made by God.
From Zahid Aziz:
It seems most unusual that a “scholar” is concealing his real identity. He should reveal his scholarly work, and may be we could learn something from him.
On a serious note, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din’s work has led to other Muslims, who appreciated it, to praise Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. As one of his collaboraters wrote in a booklet:
“I am far from being a follower of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, but I cannot but give him credit for having fired English educated Muslims with a missionary zeal for Islam. Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din is one of those men who were, so to say, reclaimed to Islam by the Mirza sahib, and that to this extent that he gave up his flourishing practice at the Bar and voluntarily accepted to be an exile and came to England with the sole object of preaching Islam.” (See link).
The writer hasn’t praised “Lahoris”, but Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Our Qadiani friends should have been happy that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad gained honour in the eyes of other Muslims through Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din.
Also Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din’s work provides the strongest proof that Muslims of those times did not regard Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as they do now to be a non-Muslim and enemy of Islam. If they believed as present-day Muslims do, they could not possibly have co-operated with such a well-known follower of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and worked with him and under him in a Muslim Mission.
All this is to the benefit of the Qadianis as well, but they don’t recognise it and instead deride and mock Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din only because he didn’t accept their khilafat.
From An Ahmadi scholar:
I am asking questions. Is that a crime?
1. How long were Lahori Imams in-charge at Woking?
2. Have you read B.A. Misri’s account of how he snatched the control of the Woking mosque from the Lahoris? With the loss of Woking….how did the Lahoris sell thier books??
3. Why dont you tell us where you were when the Lahori Imams were removed and how did you feel about that?
If you have already answered these questions..feel free to post a link for analysis.
From An Ahmadi scholar:
It seems that Hazrat Mirza Basheeruddin Mahmud Ahmad was correct when he wrote that Lahoris werent interested in Mirza Sahib’s (as) claims. They were more interested in selling books and Muhammad Ali sahib’s Quran.
In my opinion..I think Lahoris were embarrassed to be Ahmadis and developed thier own unique interpretations of Mirza Sahibs (as) claims as a means to make a profit.
When they lost Woking….the ship began sinking fast….
From Zahid Aziz:
In reply to the Ahmadi Scholar of the Qadiani Jamaat, of course asking questions is not a crime. But in this case it was actually me who was asking you the question! I wanted to know if your question was an allegation (i.e. a rhetorical question) or a question for information, so that I could respond accordingly.
I can refer you to two of my articles.
(1) An interview on this very subject which a Harvard University researcher conducted with me face to face in 2007. See page 7 of the May 2007 issue of “The Light”, U.K. edition at this link.
(2) An article I wrote at the same time in refutation of B.A. Misri’s account is in the April 2007 issue from pages 4 to 7, at this link.
In this article I have reproduced the relevant section of Misri’s leaflet in its entirety before responding to it.
Now that I have referred you to a full response of mine to Misri’s article, I am entitled to ask that you, as a scholar of the Qadiani Jamaat, should answer the first part of Misri’s leaflet which refers to the upper echelons of your Jamaat including “Hazrat Mirza Basheeruddin Mahmud Ahmad”.
According to Misri, the man you are calling as “Hazrat” personally invited Misri to join what Misri calls an “inner circle”, and according to Misri the “Hazrat” was:
And the following is how Misri describes that your Jamaat spread:
(Link to text of Misri’s leaflet: http://www.irshad.org/brochures/bane.php)
Is it a crime for me to ask you, in your capacity as a Qadiani Jamaat scholar, to respond to these allegations against your Jamaat and its holiest personages?
From An Ahmadi Scholar:
I was asking questions because I was inquiring into Ahmadiyyat in the UK and the Woking mosque. It is amazing that you were there when everything happened, yet, you have only written a few pages about this entire incident.
Did you ever pray behind B.A. Misri? What did Misri’s father have to say about all of this? Was he ever interviewed?
It seems that BA Misri never publically left Ahmadiyyat until after the Woking mosque was taken from Lahori Imamate. What I mean, is that he may have been taken as a Lahori. However, in secret he was a Muslim who was waiting for the proper opportunity to hurt Ahmadis. Maybe his father could have elaborated??? I believe Misri when he says that he became Muslim in the 1940’s. However, it seems that other Ahmadis werent aware of this and he intentially kept it a secret.
B.A. Misri was somehow elected as Imam. This is confusing….what credentials did he have that caused this appointment. The selectors must have thought that since his father was a Lahori Ahmadi…his son was also a lahori Ahmadi. Why didnt his father alert the Ahmadis in the UK that his son was far from Ahmadiyyat.
In terms of Hazrat Mirza Basheerudin Mahmud Ahmad sahib and his charachter. I feel that he was falsely accused by those who were jealous of him. If Musleh Maud (ra) was guilty of these crimes, why didnt the British govt. intercede and arrest him?
Further, what books were sold from the Woking mission??? Were there any by Mirza sahib (as) that were sold from that location?
From Zahid Aziz:
1. Being a scholar you will, I hope, publish the results of your investigations into Ahmadiyyat in the UK under your own name and in an organ of your Jamaat.
You keep on repeating to me: “you were there”. I was a school boy at the time and had no knowledge of how the Woking Mission was run.
2. We visited the Woking Mosque for Eid and saw thousands of Muslims there from all over the UK. Prayers were usually led not by the appointed imam but by some invited person. So I recall praying Eid behind Lt. Col. Abdullah Baines-Hewitt when B.A. Misri was imam.
3. Your speculations about his motives, etc. may be plausible. Misri’s statement that I referred to was published in 1988. His father died in 1979.
However, I am surprised by your language when you write:
“…he may have been taken as a Lahori. However, in secret he was a Muslim… I believe Misri when he says that he became Muslim in the 1940′s”.
Your wording conveys clearly that if an Ahmadi joins the other Muslims he becomes a Muslim. So Ahmadis are non-Muslims!
4. While you said above that I have only written a few pages about this incident, you have only written four lines about Misri’s allegations against your Khalifa 2! As a scholar of the Qadiani Jamaat, you should thoroughly refute what Misri wrote. B.A. Misri is not repeating allegations he heard from somewhere, he is claiming that he was personally involved in the immoral activities of Khalifa 2. He is claiming that he was a member of a group who were involved.
“…why didnt the British govt. intercede and arrest him?”
We constantly read of people (e.g. Catholic priests, other famous figures) in U.K. got away with such activities in our own times.
But the government did intervene. Misri writes:
Remember, Mr Ahmadi Scholar, you introduced B.A. Misri’s statement (“Have you read B.A. Misri’s account…”) into this discussion. So you now have to provide a full, and of course scholarly, refutation of his allegations against your Jamaat.
From A Great Sunni 'Aalim:
@An Ahmadi Scholar,
As a Qadiani, you are of course a Kafir and the owners of this blog too are Kafirs though of a slightly lesser nature. In my capacity as a Great Sunni ‘Aalim, I invite you to accept Islam and be spared of eternal punishment. See how B.A. Misri converted(oops….reverted) in time and was saved. I exhort you to follow his path and become a Muslim.
From An Ahmadi scholar:
1. You appear to have finally answered my initial question. I am surprised that it took so much discourse to get you to finally tell the world that you were in the dark about the debacle of the appointment of BA Misri and the subsequent sting that the Lahoris felt.
2. Are there any Lahoris who have first hand knowledge of this event? Did they write about it about academically? Why not? There appears to be gaps in the research work here that I would like to fill.
3. Can I conclude that BA Misri was taken as a Lahori Ahmadi in the 1960’s? Can I also conclude that he fooled the management of the Woking Mosque into believing that he sympathized with Ahmadis? Can I further conclude that as soon as he had the opportunity, he stung the Lahori Ahmadis and thus wrecked their center of operation in Europe? Wasn’t the Woking mosque used as a book depot? Werent all Lahori books in Europe and the USA sold from this location? Even the Quran of Muhamamd Ali?
4. It is troubling that the father of BA Misri was unavailable for comment. He could have solved the entire case of BA Misri. Did MA Misri publically join the LAM at any point? Did he ever write anything in support of the LAM?
5. In terms of why I called BA Misri a Muslim. This is a different topic. Personally, I believe anyone who claims “La illah, illalla, Muhammad ur Rasullolah” is a Muslim. However, if that person calls Mirza sahib a Kafir, than he cant possibly be a Muslim (see Bukhari). Further, the level of Momin is different than a nominal Muslim. I think Takfeer is a slippery slope for anyone. In the UK and the USA, christian clerics regularly question the christianity of different sects. As we all know the debate between protestants and catholics.
5.a. If BA Misri called Mirza sahib a Kafir in the 1960’s…I am unaware of that. The same applies for after the 1960’s.
6. I am tracking BA Misri and plan to refute him in total. As it stands, all of the data on him vs. Ahamdiyyat comes from 1988 and a document that anti-Ahmadis posted on a certain website. I was inquiring further which led me to your blog.
6.a. I know that Qazi Muhammad Nazeer responded to these allegations in Truth Prevails. My answers would be the same.
7. There is no proof that I have seen yet that BA Misri filed a case against Musleh Maud (ra). If there is…let me know.
From Zahid Aziz:
1. It is astonishing that a “scholar” lacks basic reading and comprehension ability! I answered this point in my first reply, where I wrote: “I was a teenager at the time (in answer to your question).”
2. To my knowledge no one “wrote” about this in any publication. It was no doubt discussed in administrative meetings. Did any Qadiani Jamaat member write “academically” about how they lost Qadian as their centre? That was a vastly more devastating loss for them than our loss of Woking.
3. You can conclude whatever you like. It will be unreliable since much of it will be speculation.
4. ” Did MA Misri publically join the LAM at any point?”
Who is MA Misri? Or did you mean “BA Misri”?
5. Either you failed to understand my point or you are deliberately trying to alter it.
My question was not why you called BA Misri a Muslim! My question, using bold font, was that you wrote that BA Misri, while pretending to be Ahmadi, was in secret a Muslim, and that he had became a Muslim by leaving Ahmadiyyat. Now that is the language of the anti-Ahmadiyya groups, which seems to have slipped through in your writing.
Are you an anti-Ahmadiyya who is falsely claiming to be a member of the Qadiani Jamaat? If you are an “Ahmadi Scholar” of the Qadiani Jamaat, it should be a very easy matter for you to prove it by showing your identity and recognition of scholarship within the Jamaat.
If you are appearing here under false pretences, and while defending the Qadiani Jamaat and its Khalifa 2 (as you are in points 6 and 7) you actually regard them as wrong and guilty, and presenting their beliefs as being yours by using terms like “Musleh Maud (ra)”, then any discussion is purposeless.
Remember that when you say “(ra)” after someone’s name, you are actually praying to Allah that He may be pleased with that person. So, are you saying a prayer to Allah but you want the opposite of your prayer to happen?
From Rashid:
I am ready to bet the so called “An Ahmadi Scholar” is no other than Bashir aka Rationalist aka Muslim Knight etc. This guy belongs to a Qadiani family, but is their opponent. He has not exposed his identity to Qadianis yet for fear or retaliation and problems for his family from Qadiani cult members.
From An Ahmadi scholar:
In answering your points:
1. I am an Ahmadi from the UK, where we have 20K+ Ahmadis. I am not a member of any other group. I think its beyond civility to accuse me as such. I expect an apology. Moreover, I was surprised that you could only answer the way you did. I expected more from someone who was there and knows many Lahoris and has written many books from what I looked at on your website.
1.a. I began this search as I was asked to write an article wherein I could refute the life and times of BA Misri.
2. Why are you so hostile towards me? Why the counter argument? I simply wrote that is was amazing that Lahoris hadnt written about this event in more detail. The South Africa case appears to have gotten more Lahori press, which is odd.
2.a. By the way…we were able to retain Qadian and start a new center at Rabwah. We have since moved headquarters to London, which gives us 3 major centers now. A win-win if you ask me.
Nothing slipped through my writings. You appear to be very paranoid about everything Ahmadiyyat. Maybe these people have burned you in the past? You know what I meant.
It seems that this entire discussion has turned into insults and mud-slinging. I mistakenly thought that I could learn something from you people. I wont make that mistake again.
AoA
From Rashid:
I am now more convinced, after reading above post by so called “An Ahmadi Scholar” that writer is no other than Bashir aka Rationalist. The moment he realizes that his true identity is about to be known he took leave from discussion he himself started. 🙂
From Zahid Aziz:
“Ahmadi Scholar” says: “I was asked to write an article wherein I could refute the life and times of BA Misri.”
Do we take it that you were asked by your Jamaat to write this article, and that we can expect the article to be published in some organ of your Jamaat?
If you are in U.K. you should be able to find members and office-holders of your Jamaat who were here at the time of the Woking loss and know something about it. Your Jamaat always tracked the Woking Mission, from the very beginning, for the purpose of raising objections. In the 1980s I met a member of your Jamaat (who has some Lahori relatives) who told me that he had been assigned the task by your Jamaat of searching out information about one of our Woking imams which could be used to criticise him.
Regarding your Khalifa 2’s running away from Qadian, please remember that ever since the Split your Jamaat was claiming that it was a proof of its truth, vis-a-vis Lahoris, that it was based in Qadian while Lahoris had run away, and that Lahoris were now deprived of burial in the Bahishti Maqbara.
But in 1947 the rulers of your Jamaat ran away from Qadian. And they ran away because the Hindu and Sikh rioters in Punjab did not distinguish between them and the other Muslims. The rioters regarded your Jamaat as being a part of the same Muslim community whom your Jamaat had been declaring as kafir and non-Muslim. Trying to be a separate, exclusive and “pure” sect didn’t save you.
Then, to top it all, all your ruling members were themselves deprived of burial in the Bahishti Maqbara (till today), and you fell foul of your own self-constructed standards of who is righteous and who is not.
Remember how Mirza Masroor Ahmad, while on a tour of India in late 2008, was scheduled to go to Qadian in December to celebrate a centenary of khilafat. Instead of going to Qadian, he suddenly left India and ran back to the U.K. out of fear.
From Zahid Aziz:
This may seem a mystifying question which I am asking “Ahmadi Scholar” but he will understand it. Mr Ahmadi Scholar, Do you think a person would misspell his own name twice (hint: think of the title in Arabic of chapter 12 of the Holy Quran.)
So, despite being a Lahori, I am not as naive as you assumed.