The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for April, 2018

With the completion of the renovation of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Mosque in Berlin (built 1927), a ceremony was held on 17th April 2018 to mark this event.

Here is a link to a pdf document with some photographs of the occasion and links to two brief video clips.

Zahid Aziz

An academic researcher at a prestigious USA university writes to me praising the quality of the book 'A Mighty Striving'. She says:

"The book "A Mighty Striving" is very well done, the prose is flawless and flowing, and I like the combination of original source material with a narrative that is both descriptive and analytical."

This book is the English translation of Mujahid-i Kabir done by my late mother Mrs Akhtar Aziz and myself, with supplementary material and extra references added by me. The book Mujahid-i Kabir is the biography of Maulana Muhammad Ali in Urdu.

The researcher's topic is the history of the Anjuman Himayat-i Islam, a mainstream Muslim association founded in Lahore in the 1880s. The researcher comments as follows:

"The Anjuman-i Himayat-i Islam's relationship with the Ahmadiyya is very interesting, because it seemed to have changed much over time. In the beginning, there were close ties between both organizations, I think. As you probably know, Khalifah Hamid ad-Din was one of the founders of the Anjuman, and his son Khalifah Rashid ad-Din converted to the Ahmadiyya. His daughter Rashida married Mirza Mahmud Ahmad. In 1890, the Himayat-i Islam also published Ibtal uluhiyyat-i Masih by Nur ad-Din, with the permission of the author and for the "benefit of the people of Islam", as it says on the title page. It also publicly endorsed other Ahmadi writings in its monthly Risalah. In the 1890s, as you know, Khwaja Kamal ad-Din and Muhammad Ali taught at Islamia College.

I wonder though when the relationship changed, and why? There must have been a lot of interaction between the Ahmadiyya Anjuman in Lahore and the Himayat-i Islam, because since 1914, Islamia College and the Ahmadiyya Buildings were on the same street. Also, how does one explain the role of Muhammad Iqbal? He still had a positive attitude towards members of the Lahore group, such as Khwaja Kamal ad-Din in 1911 and even after that. Why did he change his position later on and attack the community?"

I may add that these are questions explored by real and proper acedemic researchers, who carry out serious, objective study. They are at the opposite end of the spectrum from bigots of little knowledge and no reasoning capability who seek the approbation of the common crowd.