The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

After reading the excellent reply of Zahid Aziz to the retraction of Hamza Yusuf, a few points came to my mind.

Hamza Yusuf wrote – “I sincerely thank those many people who defended my honor.” This he stated while he was ‘wrong’ and had approved of the Lahoris (which he later retracted). Assumption can thus be made for Hamza Yusuf that his honor is not in what he stood for, but his honor was for him as a person. Later, by his own admission, he corrected his ‘mistake’ and he matched up to that honor which his defenders had for him.

This is diametrically opposite of the example of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Prophet’s honor was challenged when he was on the right. With passage of time, those initially ostracizing him later came over to his side.

Throughout his retraction, he stays clear of quoting Quran in his takfir of Lahoris and tries to be either an echo box of others or relies on the ijma, to count Lahoris as kafirs. This hollowness of faith is actually a reproduction of Talmud in the shell of Islam, where it is others who can declare someone as apostate, not Quran.

When Hamza Yusuf makes an appeal to his naysayers “…I request that my statements about the Lahoris be removed from the Internet, as I am not qualified to have an opinion about the matter and cannot make takfir of a group or individual on my own, as that is a judicial responsibility in Islam,” he essentially is advocating polemics of Talmudic doctrine, which is reproduced below from Jewish Virtual Library:

The spirit of the Talmudic process is expressed in a tale in tractate Baba Meziah. Rabbi Eliezer, a proponent of unchanging tradition–"a well-lined cistern that doesn't lose a drop," as his teacher characterized him–was engaged in a legal disputation with his colleagues. "He brought all the reasons in the world," but the majority would not accept his view. Said Rabbi Eliezer, "If the law is as I hold it to be, let this tree prove it," and the tree uprooted itself a hundred amma, but they said, "Proof cannot be brought from a tree." Rabbi Eliezer persisted, saying, "Let these waters determine it," and the waters began to flow backwards, but his colleagues responded that waters cannot determine the law. Once again Rabbi Eliezer tried, asking the walls of the study house to support him. They began to totter, whereupon the spokesman for the majority, Rabbi Joshua, admonished them, "when rabbis are engaged in legal discussion what right have ye to interfere!" So the walls did not fall in respect for Rabbi Joshua, nor did they return to their upright position, in respect for Rabbi Eliezer-and "they remain thus to this day!" But Rabbi Eliezer would not surrender and cried out: "Let Heaven decide." A voice was heard from Heaven saying: "Why do ye dispute with Rabbi Eliezer; the law is always as he says it to be." Whereupon Rabbi Joshua arose and proclaimed, quoting Scripture, "It is not in Heaven!" Rabbi Jeremiah explained, "The Law was given at Sinai and we no longer give heed to heavenly voices, for in that Law it is stated: 'One follows the majority."' God's truth, divine law, is not determined by miracles or heavenly voices, but by the collegium of rabbis, men learned in the law, committed to the law and expert in its application to the life of the pious community.

Such an attitude alone, negating the authority of the miraculous and heavenly voices, would have been sufficient to make the Talmud anathema to medieval churchmen, devoted as they were to the miraculous and to the divine reordering of the validity of the law. But there was more, of course. The Talmud is so vast a work, containing such a variety of views and assertions, that one can find statements that are extravagant, hyperbolic, even theologically outrageous, if taken literally. [Link: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/loc/Talmud.html]

This is how far the pulpit of Hamza Yusuf goes, it is Talmud or bust.

The dilemma of Hamza Yusuf is in his own words – “I now receive letters and emails requesting that I talk to Muslim youth who no longer identify with our faith. Sadly, harsh-hearted haters among our community are driving people from the mosques and making the most beautiful teaching in the world appear ugly.” No wonder the Muslim youth is either turning away from ijma that Hamza Yusuf relies upon for his takfir, or is it that the youth are now creating a new ijma of their own to achieve some sensibility?

While discussing takfir he quotes – Taqi al-Din al-Subki was once asked if one should declare extreme innovators disbelievers (takfir ghulat al-mubtadi’ah), to which he replied:

Absolutely not! Know this, questioner! Anyone who fears God, the Exalted, will deem it an enormity to accuse someone who says, “La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasulullah” of being a disbeliever…

The above quote fully validates Maulana Muhammad Ali while invalidates Hamza Yusuf’s own allegation of takfir against him:

My understanding of this issue came from people I trust, not to mention Al-Azhar University’s approval of Muhammad Ali’s[3] Religion of Islam as well as his insistence in the introduction to his Qur’an translation that he was a Muslim who accepted the finality of the Prophet Muhammad…

Footnote [3] Muhammad Ali (1874–1951) was the most prolific student of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and split with the Qadianis in 1914 over the issues of the succession and the claim to prophecy of Ghulam Ahmad, which Muhammad Ali argued was an addition by his son Bashiruddin and not part of the original teachings of Ghulam Ahmad. Muhammad Ali is considered the founder of the Lahori branch of the Ahmadiyyas.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. I join in the prayer by Ikram and express my sympathy and condolences to Hamza Yusuf. May Allah have mercy on the soul of David Hanson and grant him maghfirat (forgiveness), and grant patience to all the bereaved, ameen.

Did Muhammad Ali choose his own name? I thought it was Elijah Muhammad who gave him his name.

Maulana S.M. Tufail told me in the 1970s that the boxer Muhammad Ali's secretary confirmed that he was named after our Maulana Muhammad Ali. Elijah Muhammad's movement used Maulana Muhammad Ali's translation of the Quran.

Maulana Tufail was also involved in arranging the visit of Waris (Wallace) Deen Muhammad, son and successor of Elijah Muhammad, to Lahore in 1976 to meet members of our Jamaat, visit our Centre and pay tribute to its work. Want to see a photo published around the time, Saad sahib? Click here.

On that visit Waris Deen Muhamamd also went to visit my maternal grandfather, Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi, at his house to express appreciation of his book 'Muhammad in World Scriptures'. I knew about it at the time (or may be according to Saad sahib it was my "wild imagination" as to what happened in my grandfather's house during my lifetime).

Saad sahib says Maulana Muhammad Ali was not even the most famous Maulana Muhammad Ali of the era, and he gives a link to the Wikipedia entry about Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar. But if you go to that link, it says right at the top: "Not to be confused with Muhammad Ali (writer), also known as Maulana Muhammad Ali." This means people are at risk of thinking that Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar was the other Maulana Muhammad Ali! Why would that risk arise if our Maulana Muhammad Ali was an unknown figure compared to Jauhar sahib?

And if you want to know what Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar thought of our Maulana Muhammad Ali, just go to this link.

If that long letter by him is not enough (and it won't be enough for a Qadiani Jamaat propagandist like Saad sahib), I may quote what Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar wrote in his English autobiography about this:

“It was about this time (December 1918) that a kind friend sent to us a gift than which nothing could be more acceptable, a copy of the Quran for my brother and one for myself … with an austerely faithful translation in English and copious footnotes based on a close study of commentaries of the Quran and of such Biblical literature as could throw light upon the latest Holy Writ. This was the work of my learned namesake, Maulavi Muhammad Ali of Lahore, leader of a fairly numerous religious community, some of whose members were doing missionary work in England. … The translation and the notes which supplied the antidote so greatly needed for the poison squirted in the footnotes of English translators of the Quran like Sale, Rodwell and Palmer, the fine printing, both English and Arabic, the India paper and the exquisite binding in green limp Morocco with characteristic Oriental Tughra or ornamental calligraphy in gold, all demonstrated the labour of love and devoted zeal that so many willing workers had obviously contributed. This beautiful book acted like the maddening music of the Sarod, according to the Persian proverb, on the mentally deranged, and in the frame of mind in which I then was I wrote back to my friend who had sent these copies of the Quran that nothing would please me better than to go to Europe as soon as I could get out of the ‘bounds’ prescribed by my internment and preach to these war maniacs from every park and at every street corner, if not within the dubious precincts of every public house, about a faith that was meant to silence all this clamour of warring nations in the one unifying peace of Islam.”

(My Life — A Fragment, edited by Afzal Iqbal, published by Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, 1966 reprint, p. 115)

In 1974, I saw a picture of Muhammad Ali With Tufail Sahib in a booklet. I asked Tufail Sahib who was sitting next to me during the annual jalsa, when this picture had been taken. He replied that it was some time ago.

My respected friend and elder, Mr Sh. Khalid Iqbal, brother of Maulana Sh. M. Tufail, informs me that the Maulana, as Imam of the Woking Mosque, went to New York in May 1964 where he met Elijah Muhammad and visited the centres of his group. He says this visit was well reported in various newspapers in New York and in Urdu UK newspapers such as Mushriq Weekly.

He may be able to find something further in his old records.

Muhammad Ali's change of name had been announced before this in March 1964.