The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

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At this link I have compiled some research into the source of a much-repeated quotation attributed to George Bernard Shaw which begins as follows:

“I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality.”

It contains also the following comments, which are frequently quoted in Muslim literature:

“I believe that if a man like him [Prophet Muhammad] were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much-needed peace and happiness. … It [Europe] is beginning to be enamoured of the creed of Muhammad. In the next century it may go still further in recognising the utility of that creed in solving its problems …”

But what is the source of this? This is explored in my article.

Zahid Aziz

These are as follows:

Muhammad in World Scriptures, New Edition, Volume 2: Buddha foretells the advent of Prophet Muhammad

A Mighty Striving: Life and work of Maulana Muhammad Ali

Here is the Eid-ul-Fitr Message, May 2020, by Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement.

At this link, I am providing a few pages from the beginning and the end of a new edition of the section relating to Buddhist scriptures from the book Muhammad in World Scriptures. I had been working on it, on and off, for some years but have recently concentrated on it much more.

The author, Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi (d. 1977), has written in some places, and in fact he told me himself, that the objective of our Movement is to provide evidence on three points: (1) The existence and oneness of God, (2) the Quran being a revelation from God, and (3) the truth of the Holy Prophet Muhammad.

His whole book gives into the hands of Muslims arguments they can present to the world to both establish the truth of Islam and to create harmony between Muslims and followers of other religions.

If any Muslim wishes to revile or abuse us, it matters little to us. They can still use the results of our work.

— Zahid Aziz.

Maulana Aftab-ud-Din Ahmad

Dr Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah

Please see at this link a brief note which I have prepared on the book The Prophet Promised in World Scriptures, a 2013 publication by two Turkish authors, Ali Unal and Harun Gultekin. This book covers the same subject and ground as Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi’s book Muhammad in World Scriptures, a Lahore Ahmadiyya publication.

What is most remarkable is that this book frequently mentions Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi and his book, and fully acknowledges making use of it. Such acknowledgement is quite rare to see in writings by Muslims who use material from his book. The authors have also added their own discussion and analysis of the subject, so this book (unlike other such writings) is not merely a copy of the Maulana’s book. Our congratulations to these authors!

— Zahid Aziz

Please see this link to this new publication.

The work Faḍl al-Bārī is an Urdu translation of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī with extensive explanatory notes by Maulana Muhammad Ali. Its first volume, consisting of nearly the first half of Bukhari, was published in 1932, and the rest as the second volume in 1937.

Maulana Muhammad Ali, shortly before his death in 1951, had started an Eng­lish translation of this voluminous work. He reached only as far as Book 2, ch. 21, and left the manuscript with Mau­lana Aftab-ud-Din Ahmad to continue the translation. Mau­lana Aftab-ud-Din Ahmad was a scholar and missionary of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement who had, during the 1930s, served as Imam of the Woking Mosque and Muslim Mission in Woking, Surrey, England. He had also been editor of the Islamic Review and was since 1950 editor of The Light, the Lahore Ahmadiyya weekly organ. Sadly he died in 1956, having completed the first three Parts and some of the fourth Part. The first three Parts were published in 1956, 1962 and 1973 respectively, and the incomplete fourth Part was serialised in The Light between 1983 and 1985.

(Note: The collection of Bukhari has, like the Holy Quran, been divided into 30 roughly equal parts, irrespective of subject-matter.)

In 2015 we decided to continue the translation and take it up to the beginning of Part 8, since that is the point where Bukhari completes his coverage of the fundamentals of Islam. The Parts that we completed were placed online individually as they were done, and now, in October 2019, we have combined them into one volume (see link given above).

There is, of course, a well known English translation of Sahih Bukhari by Dr Muhammad Muhsin Khan. However, it contains almost no commentary. I am unaware of any other English translation of Sahih Bukhari. In Urdu there are several translations and commentaries of Bukhari. So it appears that our work is the only English translation with commentary of Bukhari (although, of course, it consists of only the first 2046 reports out of the total of 7563 reports in Bukhari).

In the preface to his Urdu work, Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote (and this part of his preface is included in our English translation):

“I have to confess my handicap that I lack a sufficiently broad knowledge of the field of Ḥadīth. Most of all, I regret that, for the translation of Bukhārī, I could not benefit from the vast and detailed knowledge of the learned Maulana Nur-ud-Din, as I had done in case of translating the Holy Qur’ān. This regret was expressed by the Maulana [Nur-ud-Din] himself in the last days of his life when he said to me: “The Qur’ān has been done, but Bukhārī remains.”

I must also mention here that this shortcoming of mine has to some extent been removed by the participation of Maulana Ahmad in this work, who shared with me the task of writing the footnotes. I also received much help from Maulana Abdus Sattar.”

The Maulana Ahmad mentioned here was the paternal grandfather of the esteemed contributor to this blog Mr Abdul Momin.

— Zahid Aziz

Around the last weekend I had read by chance in a local online UK newspaper, Birmingham Mail, speculation about the date of Eid-ul-Fitr. In this connection they displayed a table showing that on Monday 3rd June the new moon would not be visible in Makkah, Rabat the capitlal of Morocco, or various UK cities. (Note: Makkah and Morocco were listed because Muslims in UK follow moon sighting reports from these places, Makkah for obvious reasons, and Morocco because of being the nearest Muslim country.)

When Monday 3rd June came, the same online newspaper published the following news: “The date of Eid al-Fitr 2019 has been confirmed after a sighting of the first crescent of the new moon.The moon was seen at Mecca in Saudia Arabia on Monday, June 3, which is the 29th day of the holy month of Ramadan.”

On this, I e-mailed the reporter and said that this sighting was astronomically impossible, and in proof of this I referred them to the earlier story in their own newspaper (!), as well as other sources. I thought this would be the end of the matter, but the newspaper decided to publish a story based on this, to which I of course readily agreed. In fact, they published two items on this, the links to which are: item 1 and item 2.

I had hardly recovered from seeing my name in these items that a relation let me know that it had been picked up by Apple News from the UK national newspaper the Daily Express. See link.

I will let you read these yourselves, rather than summarising them.

— Zahid Aziz

Addendum to the above:

Here is a news item from The Economist, London, 8 June 2019, about moon sighting and that the Saudi Arab sighting was not accepted in some countries of the Middle East.

Here is a news item from the Urdu Daily Ummat, Karachi, 8 June 2019, about the error in the Saudi Arab announcement.

Here is a link to my Eid-ul-Fitr khutbah of today in London.

— Zahid Aziz

A well-known Muslim astronomical and moon sighting website carries the report that the first sighting of the moon anywhere in the world was in Brisbane, Australia, Tuesday 4 June. This would be at 5.00 pm, local sunset time. That corresponds to Tuesday 4 June, 10 am in Makkah, 9 am in Europe and 8 am in UK. See:

https://www.moonsighting.com/1440shw.html

It was announced from Saudi Arabia on the evening of Monday 3 June that the moon had been sighted. Due to this false announcement, most people in Saudi Arabia and many people in Europe and UK had already said their Eid prayers on Tuesday 4 June even before the new moon was sighted anywhere in the world.

— Zahid Aziz