The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for the ‘Ahmadiyya issues’ Category

Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri.

New York Times contributor Ahmed Rashid’s recent write-up:
Terror in Pakistan’s Punjab Heartland
From NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. (JUNE 4 2010)

My thoughts on it.

The author basically talks about Qadiani-Ahmadis, when he uses word ‘Ahmadis’ in his write-up.

Author writes:
“The Ahmaddiya movement is a sect that follows the teachings of a nineteenth-century religious reformer and promotes the peaceful propagation of a variant of Islam.”

I think he is confused on the status of founder of Ahmadiyya Movement i.e. Mirza Ghualm Ahmad sahib of Qadian (MGAQ). As it is Lahori-Ahmadis who consider him to be a ‘reformer’ where as Qadiani-Ahmadis consider him a “prophet”.

Author very aptly wrote:

“Ahmadis are by far the most persecuted minority in Pakistan by Islamist parties and right wing media, and they are widely portrayed as subversive and cultish in school text books. Prominent journalists and politicians think nothing of publicly reviling the Ahmadis or Christians, describing them as agents of foreign powers or anti-Pakistan, while the state has again and again demonstrated its unwillingness or inability to protect them and other religious minorities. Moreover, while Christians have prominent bishops and community leaders who are outspoken about their tribulations, and the Shia priestly hierarchy is influential and is supported outside Pakistan by Iran, nobody is willing to speak up for the Ahmadis. On Friday some of the local TV channels even refused to name their sect, calling them instead “a religious minority.” Senior government officials declined to meet with Ahmadi representatives or visit hospitals where the wounded were being treated.”

I think it is also a moment of ‘introspection’ for Qadiani-Ahmadis. They need to find what went wrong on their side and situation has deteriorated to such an extent that Senior government officials declined to meet with (Qadiani) Ahmadi representatives or visit hospitals where the wounded were being treated. Is it not possible that senior government officials are also hurting inside by some thing Qadian-Ahmadis have done?

See link here.

29th May 2010

Yesterday, two mosques of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat of Rabwah (Qadian), in Lahore, were attacked brutally by terrorists, which has taken more than a hundred innocent lives.

We strongly condemn this cowardly act of terrorism which is inhuman in its nature. We strongly believe that life of each human being is sacred and no one has the right to shed blood in this cruel manner.

We pray that may Allah enter all the martyrs in Paradise and may they be among the successful ones. We sympathise with the families who have lost their near and dear ones.

We, the members of Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i Islam Lahore (Lahori Ahmadis), stand with Jamaat-e Rabwah in this time of trial and pray that may Allah keep them safe for all times to come.

Amir Aziz,
General Secretary,
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-i Islam Lahore

Submitted by Ikram.

Allegorical parallels for everyone to see in the excerpts below:

Moses (before he left for the Mount) = Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Moses (after he returned from the Mount) = Musleh Mohoud
Aaron = Muhammad Ali
Samiri = Mirza Mehmood Ahmad

Calf = Khilafat
Bani Israil = Qadianis

20:80. O Children of Israel! We delivered you from your enemy and made a covenant with you on the right and blessed side of the Mount (Sinai), and We got Manna and quail to be sent down to you. [Followers of HMGA did excel in various professions and wealth]

20:81. (And it was also said,) `Eat of the good and pure things We have provided you, and do not exceed the limits in this respect or My displeasure shall descend upon you. Indeed, lost are those on whom My displeasure descends.’

20:82. But surely I am greatly protecting to him who turns (to Me) in repentance and believes and does righteous deeds and then sticks to guidance.

20:83. (When Moses went to the Mount, God said,) `Moses! what has made you depart from your people in such haste?’ […and similarly when HMGA departed from this world to meet his God (like anyone else)]

20:84. Moses said, `They are close on my heels and I have hastened to You, my Lord, that You might be pleased.’ [Similarly HMGA expected this followers to be “close on my heels” expecting that his followers will follow the true spirit of his message in his absence, if nothing else at-least the absolute finality of Muhammad PBUH]

20:85. (The Lord) said, `We have distinguished your people, the good from the bad in your absence and the Sâmirî has led them astray?’ [How different is Samiri from Mirza Mehmood? Both divided and diverged the followers of their respective messengers]

20:86. So Moses returned to his people indignant and sorrowful. (Reaching there) he said, `My people! did your Lord not make you a gracious promise? Did then the promised time (of forty nights and days) seem too long to you. Rather you desired that displeasure from your Lord should descend upon you that is why you failed in (your) promise with me.’ [Will not the Muleeh Mohoud have the same questions to Qadianis as Moses had for his followers?]

20:87. They said, `We have not willfully failed to keep (our) promise with you but (the thing is that) we were laden with loads of the jewelry of the (Egyptian) people and we threw them away (into the fire). That was what the Sâmîri suggested.’ [It only proves that the mass followers of any leader follow a leader more from a herd mentality and less for intellectual reasons]

20:88. Then (it came to pass that) he (- Sâmirî) produced (an effigy of) a calf for the people (to worship), a mere body (without a soul) which emitted a lowing sound. And then they (- Sâmirî and his followers) said, `This is your god as well as that of Moses,’ so he (- Sâmirî) gave up (the religion of Moses). [Just like Israelites who in mere absence of Moses reverted to their ancestral practices, the Qadianis too as a group reverted to no-questions-asked pir-mureed relationship of Mirza Mehmood and their reverence to Khilafat which could be summarized as (to worship), a mere body (without a soul). The Kkilafat, which emitted a lowing sound…]

20:89. Could they not see that this (calf) made them no answer and could neither avoid harm to them nor do good (to any). [so could be said about the Khilafat]

20:90. Aaron had, indeed, said to them before (the return of Moses from the Mount), `My people! you have only been tried by this (calf). Surely, the Most Gracious (God) is your Lord, so follow me and carry out my biddings.’ [Just like Aaron, this too is what Muhammad Ali had to say about the Khilafat of Mirza Mehmood]

20:91. They said, `We will never give up to cleave to the worship of this (calf) until Moses returns to us.’ [This is the same argument of Qadianis, who will keep up the blind fellowship till the return of Musleh Mohoud]

20:92. (Moses turning to Aaron) said, `Aaron! when you saw them going astray what prevented you

20:93. `From following me (and punishing them)? Dared you then disobey my biddings?’

20:94. (Aaron) said, `O son of my mother! do not hold me by my beard nor (pull me) by my head. (If I was not strict to them it was because) I was afraid lest you should say, “You have caused a disruption among the Children of Israel and did not preserve my word”.’

20:95. (Moses now called upon Sâmirî to account for it and) said, `What were you after (by acting as you did) O Sâmirî?’

20:96. He said, `I perceived that which they did not perceive. (My perception and insight being stronger than theirs.) I had adopted only some of the traditions (and the teachings) of the Messenger (- Moses), but that (too) I cast away. That is what my mind made fair-seeming to me.’ [Now think for a moment, how different can be the verbatim reply of Mirza Mehmood than Samiri: `I perceived that which they did not perceive. (My perception and insight being stronger than theirs.) I had adopted only some of the traditions (and the teachings) of the Messenger (- Moses), but that (too) I cast away. That is what my mind made fair-seeming to me.’]

20:97. (Moses) said, `Begone then (if it is so). It shall be your punishment to proclaim (yourself) an untouchable throughout (your) life. Not only that there awaits yet another threat (of punishment of the Hereafter) for you from which you will have no escape. Now, look at the god to which you remained so ardently devoted (as a worshipper). We will destroy it utterly and then we will scatter it away into the sea.’ [This is exactly what happened to Khilafat: We will destroy it utterly and then we will scatter it away into the sea.]

20:98. (Moses then addressing his people said,) `Your God is only Allâh, there is no other, cannot be and will never be One worthy of worship but He. He comprehends all things in (His) knowledge.’

Quran is for all times to come. Its historical narratives have moral lessons for our times as well:

20:99. In this way do We relate to you some of the important news of the days gone by. And We have indeed granted you from Us a (sublime) Reminder (- the Qur’ân).

[Holy Quran – Allamah Nooruddin]

At present we have a nationwide election campaign in the U.K. When the rival candidates debate, although each one attacks the opposite one’s policies, yet each one presents what he or she believes is the best programme for the country. There is no candidate who does nothing but attack another.

Likewise, there can really be only one debate between us and our anti-Ahmadiyya opponents. That would be on the topic of “My (or Our) Programme for the future of Islam”. As far as we are concerned, our programme is to present the Holy Quran and the life of the Holy Prophet to the whole world in a way that refutes the widely prevailing misconceptions about Islam. Our “vision” (as they say these days) is to see non-Muslims appreciating and respecting Islam and the Holy Prophet, if they can’t yet bring themselves to accept this faith. We wish to achieve this by peaceful and polite persuasion, and not in a haughty way by claiming to be the chosen ones of God.

So let the other side put forward their programme for the future of Islam, and we can debate which is more in line with the teachings of Islam and the needs of the times.

In March 1937 the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jama`at organised a public meeting at Mochi Gate in Lahore, for the sole purpose of honouring the Holy Prophet Muhammad by drawing attention to the prophecies about him in earlier scriptures. The first edition of Mithaq-un-Nabiyyin (later known in English as Muhammad in World Scriptures) had just been published.

The anti-Ahmadiyya groups arrived and asked that their reciter of the Quran be allowed to open the meeting with a recitation. The organisers felt that if they refused, the opponents would say that Ahmadis don’t respect the Quran and a riot would start. So they let their reciter start reciting.

As was the opponents’ plan, having started reciting the reciter simply wouldn’t stop! It was intended by them that he would take up all the time of the meeting with his recitation, some 3 hours. Eventually when he was asked to stop, the anti-Ahmadiyya groups broke into a riot, claiming that Ahmadis were preventing recitation of the Quran. They smashed the lights, threw stones, jumped on the stage. Even in those pre-partition days, the police did nothing to stop this. The function was wrecked. The Muslim newspapers of Lahore expressed pride at this disruption.

It was actually the anti-Ahmadiyya groups who were abusing the Quran by using it as a ploy for their own ends. The same tactics can be seen now, when they use ‘love of Islam’ or ‘love of the Holy Prophet’ merely as a false cover for their hooliganism.

Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri.

Tourists flock to ‘Jesus’s tomb’ in Kashmir
By Sam Miller
Srinagar
BBC Radio 4
March 27, 2010

A belief that Jesus survived the crucifixion and spent his remaining years in Kashmir has led to a run-down shrine in Srinagar making it firmly onto the must-visit-in India tourist trail.

See this link.
By Sam Miller
Srinagar
BBC Radio 4
March 27, 2010

I am making my response to the following part of the comment by Crankthatskunk into a separate post. (His other points I will attend to later on under his comment).

He writes:

[quote]
3- I repeat once again, take my “Butler test”; not the hilarious fudge you showed last time, then find out; how I am compare to them. Find out who is going to run. Why don’t you take me on?

Zahid, let’s face it, you are gutless, you very well know I will destroy Mirza’s credibility and the basis of your cult. You will never ever take that chance, because you know I will fulfil my promise if you ever show foolishness to go to court of Law against someone like me. Do this and you will find out the bitter truth. I just laugh at your hypocrisy, lack of courage, and your capacity to make lame excuses.
[unquote]

Crankthatskunk asks me to give him the chance to take me to court. Here it is.

I hereby make the following statement about him, and he can institute defamation proceedings against me if he wishes:

His challenge to a debate is quite fake and fraudulent because he is on the side of those who oppress and persecute Ahmadis and who prohibit Ahmadis from expressing their views as is done in Pakistan. He is therefore lying when he says he wants a debate with Ahmadis, because what he supports and wishes to see is that their voices are strangled.

Crankthatskunk poses the danger of inciting people to murder Ahmadis. The organisations he supports have already murdered Ahmadis and burnt their properties.

I speak as one whose close personal friend, and Ahmadi Imam, was shot dead at point blank range in 1986 by a man motivated against Ahmadis by the kind of hate-inciting propaganda that Crankthatskunk is spreading.

Crankthatskunk believes that Ahmadis are murtadd (apostate) and that it is the duty of Muslims to kill apostates.

His question number (3) makes it clear that he believes in a violent jihad against the British government (because it was this war-like striving that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad said was against the Quran). Crankthatskunk clearly wishes to incite Muslims in Britain to resort to violence against the state. He is therefore a risk to peace and order in the UK.

This should give Crankthatskunk sufficient grounds for instituting defamation proceedings against me.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1974 declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslim, some people in Pakistan issued announcements that they were not (or were no longer) Ahmadi but were ‘Muslim’. This was done usually in order to avoid facing intense hostility, discrimination, social ostracism etc. To convince their friends and acquaintances that they really meant it, they cut off all connection with the Jamaat, discarded any Jamaat books that were in their homes, strictly forbade any Ahmadi who was visiting them from making any mention of the Jamaat while in their houses, etc.

Time passed.

A person then middle aged became elderly. The elderly have a tendency to forgot recent events while their impression of events of longer ago remains strong. They often find comfort in regressing to a time sixty or seventy years ago. The person who did all the above in 1974 has a hazy memory of the denial, but does clearly remember times before that and starts speaking with affection about the Jamaat elders of those times! I wonder if according to the Maulvis such a person is now a murtadd, perhaps a “memory-loss murtadd”!

Another event in this connection. In Pakistan a person grows up in a “denial” household and impresses upon Ahmadis that for the sake of their own safety and lives they must deny being Ahmadi and become ‘Muslim’ under the Constitution, which he is proud of being.

Time passes. It is 2005. The person happens to come to U.K. where the train bombings have just taken place in London. The police are on the look out for Pakistani or Muslim looking people travelling on trains wearing backpacks. The person tells his friends that he is worried about being needlessly picked on, while being a wholly innocent person. Now his convenience lies in not being thought of as a Muslim!

I joke: If I was stopped and questioned I would show the authorities the Pakistan constitutional amendment and some anti-Ahmadiyya literature and say, look I am a non-Muslim according to the “entire Muslim Umma”, and in fact our Founder has been declared by them as being your (i.e. British) agent!

Submitted by Rashid.

On Internet I have asked our jamaat opponents:

Suppose if Saudi Arabia government says:

Ka`ba Sharif, and Madina Munwara are in our land; Holy Prophet Muhammad SAWS came among us; Holy Quran was revealed in our language and dialect; we are in position to best understand Islam and decide who is Muslim and who is Kafir; for us it is not important whether non-Wahabbis recite Kalima Shahada, offer prayers 5 times a day, fast in Ramadan, pay Zakat, and perform Hajj. We declare all non-Wahabbis are Kafir.

Question: Does anyone think that this new law of Saudi Arabia government is justified in light of Holy Quran and Sunna?

In reply I mostly get deafening silence. But some time I get reply like this:

“Saudi Arabia is a tyrannical monarchy that uses and abuses the name of Islam to keep its rulers in power. Its founders were traitors who sided with the enemies of Islam [British] to get into power [from Ottomon Emperor/ Sultan]. Not much of what they do can be justified under Holy Quran and Sunna.”

So my next question to them is:

Suppose Iran government says:

All non-Shias are Kafir. Do you think this new law of Iran to declare non-Shia reciters of Kalima-Shahada is justified under Holy Quran and Sunna?

In reply I get deafening silence.

Some time in reply to my original question I get answer:

“I am sure they [Saudi Arabia government] will not do it if it were not strictly according to their interpretation of Quran and Sunnah. So the answer is yes if we agree with their interpretation of Quran and Sunnah, no if we don’t.”

So I ask them next question:
Does it mean, you will agree with Saudi Arabia government to NOT allow any non-Wahabbi reciter of Kalima-Shahada to perform Hajj?

Of course in reply I get deafening silence.

I also got this reply:
“If Saudi Arabia decides to declare some group or sect as KAFIR, they will obviously not just simply declare them KAFIR without providing justification for their decision from Quran and Sunnah (as they understand it).”

When I ask my follow up question:
If Saudi Arabia Government FOR WHAT EVER REASON declares NON-WAHABBI reciters of Kalima-Shahada INCLUDING YOU as KAFIR and STOPS you from performing Hajj, are you going to accept it that you are KAFIR and you deserve NOT to perform Hajj?

As usual I don’t get reply.

These simple questions highlight the dishonesty, and lack of moral courage so prevalent among Muslims. These opponents don’t give a straightforward answer. They know if they disagree with my hypothetical question of Saudi government decision then they have to disagree with Pakistan government decision in 1974 in which Kalima-Shahada reciters were declared non-Muslims. Inna LiL’Lahay Wa Inna ELayhay Rajay’oon

This post has been submitted by our learned friend Ikram.

Due to the formatting that this post requires, it is being presented as a pdf file at this link.