The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Maulvi Ashraf Ali Thanvi Plagiarized HMGA books

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.