The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

‘the Titanic of Muslim Ummah was sinking’ – Imran Khan endorsing Altaf Hussain

Submitted by Ikram.

Yesterday, Geo TV in Pakistan interviewed Imran Khan, the apparent choice of a newer generation. His comments were reported by ‘The News’ daily – Imran Khan said that he supports Altaf Hussain’s statement in which he said ‘the Titanic of Muslim Ummah was sinking’. “Altaf is correct in saying that if we do not fix ourselves, we are heading towards destruction” (link).

For starters, at least there is a long awaited admission by a few who matter that ‘the Titanic of Muslim Ummah was sinking’. Even a blind can see that all this is happening despite Ummah having –  the Quran and it’s ever increasing publication, reciters and memorizers; life and example of the Prophet and ever increasing beards on the faces, which are only getting longer; bonanza of fee for service artists that thrive on eulogizing Quran, the Prophet and God (qirat, naat, hamd, qawallis); Islamiat as a mandatory subject from elementary school through professional colleges; mushrooming of Islamic TV programs and their experts; ever increasing number of mosques per square mile and their corresponding swelling ranks of  attenders and donors; ever stricter blasephamey laws and routine lynching by mobs;  constitutional definitions of non-Muslims (read Ahmadis) and their social and economic boycotts;  cursing of Mujaddid in signed passport applications; elaborate celebrations for any religious excuse, be it the birth of the Prophet or during Nights of Meraj, Lailatul Qadar and Ramadhan, which are no less in fervor than the carnivals in Latin America.

Obviously, by any secular standards, Ummah at least is not being helped by the above rituals, no matter how diverse and intense they maybe. Rather, all these activities are more like weights around the ankles which are speeding up the sinking itself. When a novice diver loses the sight of the light on the surface of the ocean, paradoxically to save himself, he only dives deeper, hoping life but achieves death. Across the globe, Ummah is in the grips of economic abyss, moral depravity, corruption, cronyism, social upheavals, a laughing stock of friends and foe alike, admittedly though with a few exceptions, the exceptions, which cannot be the rule in this case.

Why the Ummah is ever diving even deeper? What light has it lost sight of? Now, that is the million dollar question as to – Will the Ummah continue to sink till the time that its last vestiges disappear along with Quran and the memories of the Last Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)? While at the same time, the Quran rejecters, Prophet haters and God deniers will continue to thrive? Who will have the last laugh, the Muslims or the non-Muslims?

In a different thread (link), it was mentioned: …exhausting turmoil that the Umma is in grips of for the past century and has no solution in sight. Every next doctrine that emerges in it is even more destructive than the previous one, be it a religious, secular, democratic or dictatorial effort or any combination thereof.

Both, Imran Khan and Altaf Hussain mutually agree on a much needed way out as attributed to them in the newspaper – “if we do not fix ourselves, we are heading towards destruction.” Their hearts are in the right place, but do they have a solution?

The next million dollar question is – what is the fix?

The fix sought by Imran Khan will never be achieved unless the nonsense in the name of a religion is rejected first – “Religion without solution is a myth and fable, and of no consequence to mankind.” (quote: Pillars of Faith in Islam by Khwaja Kamaluddin, p. 16, The Woking Muslim Mission and Literary Trust, The Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, England)

Secondly, the pragmatic expectations of a religion have to be affirmed upfront  – “Religion, if from God, must come to us for the sole purpose of putting us on the path of progress”, which ironically in case of Ummah in general is not so. (quote: A Letter from Khwaja Kamaluddin, Islamic Review, Vol. XIX, Nos. 3&4, March-April 1931).

Essentially, what Kamaluddin alluded to above was the job description of the Prophet, which is primarily to unburden mankind of every kind of nonsense so that it can at least swim towards safety by its God given natural instincts. Secondly, the Prophet also puts man on the path of progress, to which history bears witness in the success of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself, as well of his successors:

7:157. `Those who follow this perfect Messenger, the Arab Prophet whom they find described in the Torah and the Evangel which are with them, who enjoins upon them that which is right and forbids them that which is wrong, and who makes lawful for them all the pure and good things, and makes unlawful all the impure and bad things, and who relieves them of their heavy burden and shackles that weigh them down. Indeed those who believe in him and honour him and serve him and follow the light that has been sent down with him, it is these who will attain their goal.' [translation: Nooruddin]

With the above admission by Imran Khan, an apparent Divine satire comes to mind. To keep the spirit of the message of Torah alive, which was none but a limited book with a limited scope for a limited number of ethnic people, speaking only a limited language, God ordained a chain of prophets from Moses to Jesus (peace be upon them). For example, in the case of Mary, her uncle (Zacharias), cousin (John) and son (Jesus) were all prophets within the same household.

Whereas, with Quran, since the message was complete (v. 5:5), and its preservation is a Divine undertaking (v. 15:9), logically then there was no need for any more prophet after Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) (v. 33:40). Essentially, ever since Quran and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the angel Gabriel has been permanently retired with no chance for a recall to active duty under any circumstances. Still the same Almighty God in case of Muslims seems to have disappeared, He neither speaks nor sends revivers of the Book? One finds no better word than ‘Irony’ when the duo of Quran and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) are compared against Torah and Moses. Islam clearly seems to be at a disadvantage.

Unbeknownst to general Muslims, there is no such ‘Irony’. God still speaks and appoints. To prevent the natural decay that any message faces overtime, history bears witness that Divinely ordained Mujaddids, the revivers, appeared and made such a claim and worked only to unburden the Muslims (similar to v. 7:157 above), revive the Message of Quran to contemporary needs and remove any dross that might have accumulated around the Last Prophet over the period of time, and thus reset the course of Muslims to success. Every Hijrah century has seen such revivers starting with Umar bin Abdul Aziz. The last of this chain of Divine revivers who made such a claim of Mujaddid and wrote extensively was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. If not nothing else, under his direct influence numerous translations of Quran occurred on a mass scale (Nooruddin, Muhammad Ali, Sadruddin), and others were indirectly influenced (Pickthall, Muhammad Asad, Yusuf Ali).

Now, the burden is on Imran Khan and Altaf Hussain to pick any writing of the Mujaddid of the last century and ask for themselves the fundamental question that whatever Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote with his pen and whatever he spoke with his mouth, is he not who enjoins upon them that which is right and forbids them that which is wrong, and who makes lawful for them all the pure and good things, and makes unlawful all the impure and bad things, and who relieves them of their heavy burden and shackles that weigh them down?

As a final caveat, unlike the Jewish people, we Muslims do not have the luxury of any prophet after Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). We only have the alternate form of Mujaddids. As to the accepters of a Mujaddid – Indeed those who believe in him and honour him and serve him and follow the light that has been sent down with him, it is these who will attain their goal.'

Imran Khan and Altaf Hussain, both of you have been informed. Now, you know what phone number to call and which door to knock. Good luck.

P.S. To have a feel of how a Mujaddid revives minds can be seen in the writing of one of his students, who was the first Muslim missionary in the West, the same Kamaluddin who was quoted before:

“If the Religion taught in the book is a husk and a garb, if it is dogma and formulae, 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?” (quote: Free Religious Movement, Islamic Review and Muslim India , Vol. IV, No. 12, December 1916, p. 561, The Woking Muslim Mission and Literary Trust, The Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, England)