The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for December, 2013

I am thankful to Mohammad Iqbal sahib for pointing out this news:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/25/world/meast/saudi-blogger-death-sentence/

Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri

Munir-ud-Din, Ph.D, a former Qadiani now opponent of HMGA writes following posts on ahmedi.org forum:

I had known for quite some time that Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi had copied from the book "Asrar-e Shari'at" by my grand father Maulavi Muhammad Fazal Khan. But I was not aware of the extant of this coping as Thanvi Sahib's book "Ahkam Islam eql ki nazar main" was not available to me. Now through some good chance I could lay my hands on this celebrated book. I thought he might have copied some paragraphs or pages. But now I know that 95 per cent of his book is word by word true copy of "Asrar-e Shari'at", all three volumes. 

I had known that he had also copied from the writings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and sold that material as his own.

What a daring thief he was that copied 95 per cent of a book which was available in the market. But as we know things move very slowly in our part of the world. It took me almost 60 or more years to look into his robbery. I intend to write about this literary theft in the literary quarterly "Savera", Lahore.

~~Dear @4pac – Asrar-e Shari'at means Secrets or Philosophy of the (Islamic) Shari'a. It is a celebrated book with three volumes which runs into 1100 pages. 

Now a word about Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi, whom many on the Indian Sub-continent regard as the Mujaddid of the 20th century and whose book "Bihishti Zewar" (Ornament of Paradise) was customarily given to the brides as a marriage gift and which now is also available in English translation.

This man was a notorious literary thief, who even stole texts from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and from many other authors. And although this thing is quite obvious and known to many, he is called "Hakim-i Ummat".

~~Dear @4pac – You have many times asked, if you can read the books of my Grand Father in English. Now my answer is: yes you can. A certain Rafiq Abdur Rahman translated the above book, still thinking it to have been authored by Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi into English. It is also available from sellers in the West. It is called: 

              "The wisdom behind the commands of  Islam"

               By Muhammad Ashraf Ali Thanvi

               Translated by Rafiq Abdur Rahman

               Published by: Darul Ishaat. Karachi.

               Year of the first publication: 2004 – 424 Pages.

Now that we know that 95 percent of the text was taken from "Asrar-i Shari'at" without any change or diversion, we can assume that the said book is in fact property of my Grand Father Maulavi Muhammad Fazal Khan. You may look for it in the Internet, where it is being sold for US $ 8.25.

I don't know if I can do much in this matter. Maulavi Ashraf Ali is dead and his followers will not be ready to take responsibility for this theft. All I can do is to make some noise in the media. Perhaps the translator could be persuaded to withdraw the book or at least acknowledge that it was not authored by Maulavi Ashraf Ali Sahib.

~~Well I don't know, if I will be able to take legal action in this case, as I am living too far away in a foreign country. But I will handover this matter to the younger generation of my family. Some of them are practicing lawyers and are also living in Pakistan. I have my reservations regarding the Justice system of Pakistan. Many years ago Maulavi Allah Yar Chinyoti (I hope this is the right name) visited our village Changa Bangial and made a statement regarding passages from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani in some books of Maulavi Ashraf Al Thanvi. He said it all happend due to some mistake. In fact the original quotes were from the books of Maulavi Muhammad Fazal Khan, which were copied by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani as well as Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi. So it was not that serious crime. Both Mirza Ghlam Ahmad and Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi had committed the same crime.

But the fact of the matter is that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was already dead when my grand father started writing his book. In certain matters he quoted from the books of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad with full reference or at least with the name of "Ahmad" in brackets or in the case of Maulavi Nurruddin, the first Caliph of Mirza Sahib, whose initials were "Nur".  This was done because already in 1909 it was deadly to name Mirza Sahib or other Ahmadies in your book as reference. Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi did not know this or he did not care about such niceties. He left all references out and presented the text as his own. In this way he came to be blamed for steeling also from the writings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

~~At long last I have written an article with full evidance that Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanavi stole the book "Asrar-e Shari'at" of my grand father Maulavi Muhammad Fazal Khan.It is in Urdu and can be opened by clicking on the following link. 

http://munir.my-place.us/Thanavi.pdf

~~Dear @4pac – If  you would have started learning Urdu by the time you began wailing for me or some one else to translate Urdu books for you, you could have mastered the language by now. I understand that you already know the spoken language. It is only the written script which anybody can learn within weeks.

And now let us talk about Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanavi and his theft of the book of my grand father Maulavi Muhammad Fazal Khan.

An article under the above title appeared in the Daily Times of Pakistan on 22 December 2013 (click link to read).

It says:

"Bhutto’s 1973 constitution made Pakistan an oxymoronic Islamic republic where sovereignty belonged to Allah and, in turn, to Allah’s laws. He also declared the Ahmedis as non-Muslims, proudly calling it the “solution to a 90-year-old problem”, and adopted a pan-Islamic vision in which he viewed himself as the leader of the Islamic world. By the end of the 1970s, Pakistan was two for two, in terms of ‘secular’ leaders who defined Muslims as one nation, and also two for two, in terms of ‘secular’ leaders who manifested archetypal religious intolerance."

"The demand to excommunicate the Shia community is the natural corollary of the verdict against the Ahmedis, … since Bhutto politicised the process of takfir (apostasy), religious sects are now well and truly under the takfiri guillotine."

The article draws a parallel between Mr Jinnah's creation of a separate state for Muslims in the name of religion and Z.A. Bhutto declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims, since he considers both acts as going against religious co-existence. But Mr Jinnah was defending the interests of a minority, i.e. Muslims of India, which was fearing oppression by the majority in a united India, while Z.A. Bhutto sided with an overwhelming majority to oppress a minority. Whether Mr Jinnah was right or wrong, for him to argue for Muslim rights in the face of the Hindu majority, was at least an act of great courage. Bhutto's action required no courage as he had a great majority behind him.

Also, Mr Jinnah actually believed in the cause he was promoting, i.e., the partition of India. Z.A. Bhutto did not believe in the cause of the Ulama and the Islamic parties, and supported their demands cynically to win popularity for himself.

Also, I may add the obvious fact that Bhutto was under massive pressure to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslim and faced almost no opposition in doing this. Mr Jinnah was not under any pressure from other quarters to demand Muslim rights; he made the demands because he himself wanted to have them fulfilled, and unlike Bhutto he faced intense opposition from the Congress and the British government. Mr Jinnah led the demands he was making, whereas Bhutto followed the demands that others made.

Mr Jinnah fought his opponents and won a substantial victory over them. Bhutto thought it best to surrender to his opponents and adopt their demands.

For the rest of December there may be a delay before I can publish your submitted comments, as my Internet access might not be regular, and my own comments may also be more brief than usual. However, I will try to keep the blog up to date as frequently as I can.

Zahid Aziz

Submitted by Omar Raja.

I came across a remarkable statement of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad as cited in the book, Ahmadiyyat the Renaissance of Islam by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan. The book can be found here: http://www.alislam.org/books/

Mirza Mahmud declared in 1944 regarding the prophecy of the Promised Son, “I therefore announce, under divine command, on oath, that God has appointed me the Promised Son of the Promised Messiah, peace be on him, according to his prophecy, who has to convey the name of the Promised Messiah to the ends of the earth. I do not say that I am the only Promised One and that no other promised one will be appear till the Day of Judgment. It appears from the prophecies of the Promised Messiah that some other promised ones will also come and some of them will appear after centuries. Indeed, God has told me that at one time He will send me a second time to the world and I will come for the reform of the world at a time when associate with God will have become widespread. This means that my soul will, at some time, descend upon someone who will possess faculties and capacities like mine and he will, following my footsteps, bring about a reform of the world. Thus, promised one will appear in their due times according to the promises of God Almighty.” (Ahmadiyyat the Renaissance of Islam by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, pp. 293-294). Note: Page 303 by PDF search.

So in effect he declares that he himself will have his own ‘second coming,’ so much so that his very soul will be implanted into another human being! Thus Qadianis await the second coming of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad?

I may mention, it was curious to read as well the details given regarding the assassination attempt on his very life.

Muhammad Zafrulla Khan writes:  “Yet, there were those who, through error, bigotry, misunderstanding or sheer perversity entertained bitter hostility towards him and were capable of subjecting him to the most heinous outrages.  One day in March 1954 a young man belonging to this last category managed to take his stand in the first line of worshippers immediately behind him, while he was leading the afternoon service in the principal  mosque of Rabwah. In the middle of the service he suddenly advanced upon him from his rear and drove the blade of long sharp knife into his neck with murderous force….the injury inflicted… was deep and grievous and had a serious effect on his nervous system… The blade of the knife had penetrated into his neck a distance of four inches and its point had stopped right at the jugular vein… the unanimous conclusion was that the point of the knife had broken at the jugular vein and was embedded in it. The expert advice was that no attempt should be made to extricate it as the risk to his life involved in any such operation was too serious to be worth taking. He was advised to adopt a restful pattern of life and to avoid hard work and long periods of sustained labour. For a person of his temperament and high capacities this was a disappointing prospect. But there was no help for it. He was still able to carry on a comparatively active life, but the pressure on his nervous system, instead of being eased with the passage of time, tended to be intensified progressively.” (Ahmadiyyat the Renaissance of Islam by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, pp. 331-333). Note: Page 341 by PDF search.

After this type of injury, I wonder how was he able to function as Khalifa for the remainder of his life, since as I understand it, one of the controls of the nervous system is to facilitate the ability to think and reason.  http://www.webmd.com/brain