The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

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Our friend from Indonesia, Erwan Hamdani, has sent us a clearer English translation of the 12-point statement by the Qadiani Jama`at in Indonesia. It is as follows:

1. We, Jemaat Ahmadiyya members, since the beginning, have believed and said kalimah shahadat as taught by His Majesty Muhammad Rasulullah the Prophet (PBUH), i.e. Ashhadu anlaa-ilaaha illallahu wa ashhadu anna Muhammadar Rasullulah, meaning: I witness that there is no God besides Allah and I witness that surely Muhammad is Rasulullah.

2. Since the beginning, we, Jemaat Ahmadiyya members, have believed that Muhammad Rasulullah is Khatamun Nabiyyin (end of prophet).

3. Among our beliefs, Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a teacher, murshid, bearer of good news and warnings, and bearer of mubashshirat, founder and leader of jamaat Ahmadiyat, whose mission was to strengthen dawah and propagation of Islam which was brought by Muhammad (PBUH) the Prophet.

4. To clarify that the word Rasulullah in the 10 points of bai’at that have to read by candidates of jamaat Ahmadiyya is Muhammad (PBUH) the Prophet, we put the word Muhammad in front of the word Rasulullah.

5. We, Ahmadiyya members, believe that there is no wahyu shariat after Al-Quranul Karim brought to Muhammad the Prophet. Al Quran and sunnah of Muhammad (PBUH) the Prophet is the source of Islamic teaching that we follow.

6. Book of Tadzkirah is not Ahmadiyya’s holy book, but it is a record of spiritual experiences of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad that were collected into a book that is called Tadzkirah by his followers in 1935, that was 27 after his demise.

7. We, Jemaat Ahmadiyya members, have never and will never consider other Muslims outside Ahmadiyya kafir, either by words nor by acts.

8. We, Jemaat Ahmadiyya members, have never and will never call the mosques that we built with a name called Ahmadiyya’s mosque.

9. We declare that every mosque that was built and administered by Jemaat Ahmadiyya is always open for all Muslims from all groups.

10. We, Jemaat Ahmadiyya members, as muslims register (our) marriages at the Religious Affairs Offices and register (our) divorces and other matters related to it to Religious Court Offices in accordance to the law.

11. We, Jamaat Ahmadiyya members, will keep increasing the silaturaim and cooperate with all muslim groups and the public in public social khidmad for Islamic, people and national progress.

12. With this explanation, we, the executive of Jemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia, expect that Jemaat Ahmadiyya members specifically, and Muslim ummah in general, can understand this matters with ukhuwah Islamiyah and national unity spirit.

Erwan has added the following comments on this:

HMGA being Mahdi or Messiah is not an essential issue here. The Goverment is only concerned about prophethood after the Holy Prophet Muhammad as Qadiani Jama`at believes, because this wrong believe can cause riots.

All of Qadiani publishing in Indonesia will be monitor by the government. This 12-point statement is regarded by Indonesian Goverment as a “massive repentance” by the Qadiani Jama`at of Indonesia.

In response to the news item in The Jakarta Post, the international head-quarters of the Qadiani Jama’at in London has issued a Press Release affirming that they do believe Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be a prophet.

Here is a link to the Press Release on their website.

Our comment: Instead of blaming The Jakarta Post for making “false claims”, the Qadiani Jama`at should examine the 12-point statement issued under the signature of their Amir in Indonesia and declare whether it represents their position or not.

For example, we understand some points are as follows:

3. Our belief, among others, is that HM Ghulam Ahmad is a teacher, murshad, bearer of glad news and a warner and bearer of mubashirat, founder and leader of Ahmadiyya Jamaat who strengthened dawah and shariah of Islam brought by Nabi Muhammad SAW.

7. We, Ahmadiyya Jamaat members, have never and shall not consider other Muslims outside Ahmadiyya as kafir, either by words or deeds.

8. We Ahmadiyya Jamaat members never and shall not call mosque built by us by the name Ahmadiyya Mosque. 

This is not an update but another report from The Jakarta Post. The link to it is:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailweekly.asp?fileid=20080116.@04

In case this link changes in future, below is given its content. An interesting part of this news (see below) reads:

“Ahmadiyah also said they would not look to convert Muslims to their beliefs, but said they would instead strengthen relations with mainstream Muslims.”

January 16, 2008
Govt spares Ahmadiyah with no ban
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government said Tuesday it would not ban Ahmadiyah, defying a controversial fatwa by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) that had declared Ahmadiyah an heretical Islamic sect. The decision not to ban the group was made after Ahmadiyah leaders issued a statement saying they acknowledged Muhammad as the last prophet. The statement was an apparent reversal of its previous stance.

It appears that the Indonesian legal authorities have given the Qadiani Jama`at three months to prove its committment to recognising the Holy Prophet Muhammad as the Last Prophet. Our suggestion to the Qadiani Jama`at is that they re-issue the following statement by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad which he made in February 1892, signed by eight independent witnesses:

“Be it known to all the Muslims that all such words as occur in my writings Fath Islam, Tauzih Maram and Izala Auham, to the effect that a muhaddas is in one sense a prophet, or that being a muhaddas is partial prophethood or imperfect prophethood, are not to be taken in their real sense, but have been used according to their root meaning in a straight-forward way; otherwise, I lay no claim whatever to actual prophethood. On the other hand, as I have written in my book Izala Auham, page 137, my belief is that our leader and master Muhammad mustafa — may peace and the blessings of God be upon him — is the Khatam-ul-Anbiya (Last of the Prophets).

So I wish to make it clear to all Muslim brothers that, if they are displeased with these words and if these words give injury to their feelings, they may regard all such words as amended, and instead consider me to have used the word muhaddas. For I do not like to create dissension and discord among the Muslims.

From the beginning, as God knows best, my intention has never been to use this word nabi as meaning actually a prophet, but only as signifying muhaddas. Of muhaddas it is stated in a saying of the Holy Prophet: “Among the Israelites who were before you, there used to be men who were spoken to by God, though they were not prophets, and if there is one among my followers, it is Umar” — Bukhari, v. 1, page 521, part 14, ch. Virtues of Umar.

Therefore, I have not the least hesitation in stating my meaning in another form for the conciliation of my Muslim brethren, and that other form is that in every place instead of the word nabi the word muhaddas should be understood, and the word nabi should be regarded as having been deleted.”

(Majmu‘a Ishtiharat, reprinted by the Qadiani Jama`at in April 1986, volume 1, pages 312 to 314).

Read at this link the original Urdu text of this statement.

Here is a news item from The Jakarta Post dated 19th January 2008 (the time difference means it is already the 19th in Indonesia):

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20080118.H03&irec=2

(Note on 19 January: Unfortunately the above link shows a different item of news every day! However, yesterday I copied from the original news the extract given below.)

We may highlight from it the following:

Wisnu, who is the deputy attorney general of intelligence, said the board gave Ahmadiyah three months to prove it was committed to its new stance that recognized Muhammad as the last prophet of Islam. …

“We have given Ahmadiyah followers the opportunity to return to the right path, and their activities will be monitored and evaluated over the next three months,” Wisnu said.

Before this news (see next item), there was an earlier item of news from Indonesia actually quoted on the the Qadiani website www.thepersecution.org itself.

See: http://www.thepersecution.org/world/indonesia/08/01/jp04.html

This is quoted from The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 4th January 2008. It is stated within it:

“Junior Attorney General for Intelligence Affairs Wisnu Subroto said the AGO would treat the letter from the forum [i.e. the anti-Ahmadiyya organisations] as a recommendation in the body’s meeting, along with the recommendation from the Indonesian Ulemas Council submitted previously.

The government needs to hear all the information from all parties, including from Ahmadiyah members. During the last meeting with the AGO, Ahmadiyah leaders explained they did not recognize Mirza Gulam Ahmad as a prophet, but merely as a pious leader.

“Many groups, including the forum’s members, believed the clarification was just a game being played by the Ahmadiyah leaders to escape being banned (at that time),” Wisnu told The Jakarta Post by phone.

This is a statement from a government official appearing in a newspaper in Indonesia, and then reproduced on a Qadiani website. If it is not correct, the Qadiani website could have added their own comment to clarify that they did not say that “they did not recognize Mirza Gulam Ahmad as a prophet, but merely as a pious leader”.

News is being received that the Qadiani Jamaat in Indonesia, when presenting their beliefs to government officials, have issued a statement omitting their belief that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet. Their statement acknowledges that the Holy Prophet Muhammad was the last Prophet and that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is their teacher or murshad.

Please read the following link:

http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1539/ahmadiyya/

If this is fully confirmed then once again the founders of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement have been vindicated. Perhaps in the 100th anniversary year of his death Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has been exonerated and cleared of the stigma and false charge of claiming to be a prophet.

Since the Split occurred in 1914 the Qadiani Jamaat has been forced, over the years, to retract its following false beliefs:

• That the ‘Ahmad’ mentioned in the prophecy of Jesus, recorded in the Quran, is not the Holy Prophet Muhammad but Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
• That all other Muslims, except those who take the Pledge of the Promised Messiah, are kafir and excluded from Islam.
• That for Ahmadis to hold janaza prayers for any other Muslim, whomsoever it may be, is prohibited.
• And now, that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet.

The Qadiani Jamaat has placed on its website the book Kalimat-ul-Fasal by Mirza Bashir Ahmad (younger brother of the second Khalifa Mirza Mahmud Ahmad). You can read it here:

http://www.alislam.org/urdu/pdf/Kalma-tul-Fasal.pdf

This is the book in which the Qadiani doctrine is presented most vigorously and emphatically that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is a prophet just like Moses, Jesus and the Holy Prophet Muhammad, and that any Muslim who does not believe in Hazrat Mirza sahib is (1) a kafir, (2) a full-fledged kafir, (3) excluded from the fold of Islam, and (4) that Ahmadis must treat other Muslims in the same way as if they belonged to a religion of the past like Christians, and that Ahmadis should only say assalamu alaikum to other Muslims in the same way as a Muslim can sometimes greet a non-Muslim with this greeting.

It is laid down in this book absolutely blatantly that Ahmadis must not have any religious or social dealings with other Muslims in the ways that a Muslim is meant to have dealings with his fellow Muslims.

If you want to know what caused the split in the movement in 1914, read this book written in 1915.

The Qadiani Jamaat has spent decades trying to distance itself from the views expressed in this book, so I don’t know if they have completely lost their senses by making it available online. It is the perfect gift to the opponents of the Ahmadiyya movement and gives them all the grounds for declaring Ahmadis as kafir.

A member of the Qadiani Jamaat in California has alleged that the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat has falsely inserted the following statement into its English translation of the book Kitab-ul-Bariyya by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad:

“I was born towards the last days of Sikh rule in 1839 or 1840.”

The reason for this accusation is that in their own Jamaat’s literature they read that the Promised Messiah was born in 1835 (of course we also accept that date). Qadiani Jamaat members appear to think that any statement in our publications which happens to conflict with something in their publications must be a deliberate falsehood. This gentleman claims that he has read through Kitab-ul-Bariyya and did not find any words like the above in it.

I have responded by simply making a sworn statement that I have read this book on the Qadiani Jamaat’s own website, and these words in Urdu are present in it. I have asked the accuser to make a similar sworn statement that he has read the book and that these words are not in it and that “Lahoris” or Zahid Aziz have falsely inserted them. I have asked that he can also try getting his accusation published in his Jamaat’s organs.

Perhaps his Jamaat would care to comment.

On the front page of Badr, 19 September 1912, there is an article by the editor Mufti Muhammad Sadiq (later a prominent missionary of the Qadiani Jama`at) entitled: What was the occupation of the Promised Messiah?

He writes:

On 18th January 1905 when I was headmaster in Qadian I wrote a note to the Promised Messiah which is reproduced below along with his reply. It is hoped it will be of interest to readers.

The Note

To the holy Hazrat, our leader and our Mahdi, the Promised Messiah.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu

The name of Mian Mahmud Ahmad will today be sent forward for the examinations. The form that has to be filled has a space asking, What is the occupation of the boy’s father? I have written in it the word nubuwwat [prophethood].

… [Rest of note omitted in this translation as it is about some medical advice, see image for full text]…

Your most humble servant, Muhammad Sadiq,

18th January 1905

The reply

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu

Nubuwwat is not an occupation. Please write that he is the leader and Imam of the Ahmadiyya sect which numbers about 300,000. The occupation is the reform of the people.

Ghulam Ahmad.

So in that form I wrote in English as follows the occupation of the Hazrat:

National Reformation and Leadership of Ahmadiyya Sect (300,000 members)

See image from Badr below (click to enlarge to full size).