Qadiani Jamaat translation of a statement in ‘Haqiqat-ul-Wahy’
In the Lahore Ahmadiyya literature, a statement by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from an Arabic section in his (largely) Urdu book Haqiqat-ul-Wahy has long been given as follows:
“And I have been called nabi by Allah by way of metaphor, not by way of reality.”
(Haqiqat-ul-Wahy, Zameema, pp. 64–65; Ruhani Khaza’in, v. 22, pp. 688–689).
Someone came across the Qadiani Jamaat English translation of the complete book Haqiqat-ul-Wahy and searched for long to find this statement in it, and failing to find it he then asked me where it was. So I looked in the Qadiani English translation and found it in the following words:
“I have been granted the name ‘Prophet’ by Allah, not in its original sense [of being raised independently], but as a subordinate Prophet.” (p. 878)
The statement in Hazrat Mirza sahib’s book is exactly as we have been translating it, the word for metaphor being majaz and the word for reality being haqiqat. A person being called “prophet” by way of metaphor means that he is not a prophet, and Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has made this point further clear by adding: “not by way of reality.”
If there could be any doubt about what he means by metaphor and reality, it is removed by his explanation, earlier in the same book, of how prophets of God were called as ‘sons of God’. He writes:
“In the earlier scriptures the perfectly righteous ones have been called sons of God. This also did not mean that in reality (haqiqat) they were sons of God, for this is heresy and God is clear of having sons and daughters. The meaning is, in fact, that God had manifested Himself as an image in the clear mirror of (the hearts of) these perfectly righteous ones. …
As to Jesus being called son of God in the Gospels, if Christians had remained within the limit of saying that just as Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon etc. were called sons of God in a metaphorical (isti‘arah) sense in the books of God, in the same way is Jesus so called, then there would have been no objection. For, just as these prophets were called son metaphorically in the books of the earlier prophets, our Holy Prophet has been called God in some prophecies. The fact is that neither were all those prophets sons of God, nor is the Holy Prophet God. All these are metaphorical expressions based on love.”
(Haqiqat-ul-Wahy, pp. 63–64; Ruhani Khaza’in, v. 22, p. 65–66).
Just as, in the earlier scriptures, prophets had been called ‘sons of God’ or even ‘God’ metaphorically, similarly it was by way of metaphor that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was called ‘prophet’ in his revelation and in a Hadith prophecy about him. According to Islam, the prophets did not become sons of God or God in reality by any stretch of the imagination. However, Christians took Jesus for son of God in reality, which was a great error. This amply illustrates what is meant by metaphor as opposed to reality. Similarly, Hazrat Mirza sahib was not a prophet in reality, and it is a great error to consider him so.
It is clear that the Qadiani translation of this statement has no justification whatsoever. They have converted “prophet by way of reality” into “independent prophet” and converted “being called prophet by way of metaphor” into “being a subordinate prophet”, while the statement contains no mention of independent or subordinate at all.
— Zahid Aziz
From Zahid Aziz:
I may add here that on the Qadiani Jamaat website there is an Urdu translation of this Arabic section of Haqiqat-ul-Wahy (see link), and in this translation the above statement has been quite correctly rendered as:
From Omar Raja:
According to Mirza Mahmud Ahmad (2nd Khalifa of Qadian/Rabwah Jamaat), it is the uneducated, ignorant people who refer to 'prophets without a law' as metaphorical prophets, and as such refer to Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as one those such metaphorical prophets.
And further in the same book, he thus writes: