The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for the ‘general’ Category

assalamu alaikum,

Eid Mubarak to all blog readers. May Allah bless and help you in every way. May Allah develop in us the spirit of sacrifice to advance His cause in a loving and peaceful way for the whole world, Ameen.

May the promise of Allah to Abraham be fulfilled through the Holy Prophet Muhammad and his followers, and that promise is as follows in the Bible:

“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you … and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” (Genesis, 12:2–3)

The Quran says:

“And who is better in religion than he who submits himself entirely to Allah while doing good (to others) and follows the faith of Abraham, the upright one? And Allah took Abraham for a friend.” — 4:125

— Zahid Aziz

I have compiled some information about the above inaugural service, with brief descriptions of the proceedings, photographs and video recordings of three of the speakers. The background is as follows.

During 1914-1915 several hundred thousand Muslim soldiers from areas now in Pakistan were among the more than one million Indian soldiers deployed by Britain in France and Belgium in the First World War against Germany (known also as the Great War). Indians who were wounded were in some cases brought to England for treatment in military hospitals. For Muslim soldiers who died here, their funeral and burial arrangements were discussed by the government with the Imam of the Mosque at Woking, Maulana Sadr-ud-Din. As a result, the site at Horsell Common, near the Mosque, was selected as the burial ground.

In 1969, due to vandalism, all the bodies were moved to Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey, where some Muslim soldiers had been buried both before and after the Horsell site was established. The Horsell site, with its domed entrance, fell into disrepair for decades. Recently it has been restored by local municipal organzations and bodies as the “Muslim Burial Ground Peace Garden”, opened by Prince Edward in November 2015.

On 16 July 2017 the Inaugural Commemoration Service was held to mark the anniversary of the first burial, at Horsell Muslim burial ground, of a Muslim soldier of the British Indian army on 16 July 1915. It was organized by Woking Borough Council (the local government authority) and the British armed forces.

My report is at this link.

(Just one point. The Ahl-i Sunnah Imam, at the end of his prayers, as you can see in the recording, said a prayer for the prosperity of Britain and the British people. I and our group said Ameen. The anti-Ahmadiyya will presumably treat our saying Ameen to this prayer as confirmation of their allegation that we are "British agents and stooges". Of course, the allegation does not apply to the person who said this prayer or the other Muslims present who also said Ameen!)

A TV documentary by Prof. Jim Al-Khalili, entitled Science and Islam, first shown in 2009, is being repeated on the BBC Four channel. At the end of the first of three episodes, he concludes as follows:

"… but I think the real story of what happened to science in the Islamic world in the 8th and 9th centuries tells us more than any single discovery. What it really tells us is about the universal truth of science itself.

I believe that the first great achievement of the medieval Islamic scientists was to prove that science isn't Islamic, or Hindu, or Helenistic or Jewish, Buddhist or Christian. It cannot be claimed by any one culture.

Before Islam science was spread across the world but the scholars of medieval Islam pieced together this giant scientific jigsaw by absorbing knowledge that had originated from far beyond their own empire's borders. 

This great synthesis produced not just new science but showed for the first time that science, as an enterprise, transcends political borders and religious affiliations. It's a body of knowledge that benefits all humans. Now that's an idea that is as relevant and inspiring as ever."

Please watch at this link, from 56:15 to 57:24.

(At the above link the video is available till the beginning of August. The three episodes are available as one video at this link, apparently without time restriction.)

What Jim Al-Khalili has noted is very perceptive and profound. It is a far cry from those many populist articles by Muslims saying that certain discoveries of modern science were already mentioned in the Quran. I don't doubt the underlying truth of those articles, but they achieve nothing except make Muslims feel good and sneer condescendingly at others that their religion is supreme. Those writers don't realize that it is no credit to Muslims that the Quran contained knowledge which man discovered later. Muslims of recent centuries made no effort or sacrifices to discover it.

It is quite obvious that the Muslim scientists of the early period did not take the attitude that all discoveries are written down in the Quran, and we don't need to do anything ourselves. Wherever they found knowledge developed by previous civilizations, they adopted it and translated it into Arabic.

— Zahid Aziz

The above expression occurs commonly in the Quran to describe a true Muslim.

With the spread of social media, this can be seen in a new light. "Those who believe" means those who believe in the contents of any e-mail they receive from a contact, who has forwarded it from one of his contacts, and so on, from a long chain. The doing of good is to forward the same e-mail to all your contacts. These are the present-day fundamental qualities of a true Muslim. This is not a joke or exaggeration because they actually do think that they are performing an important service to Islam by believing in and forwarding such e-mails.

Just as the text of the Quran remains unchanged after passing through so many hands, also by a miracle the text of these e-mails remains unchanged after several years.

This is the Islam of today as followed by hundreds of millions!

— Zahid Aziz

Please see this Press Release issued by The Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore (United Kingdom), headed:

Forgiveness and restraint: a message at Eid and an insight into Islam's true teachings.

Here is the Eid-ul-Fitr Message, June 2017, of Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement.

Scientific data relating to the movement of the moon shows that on Saturday 24 June (2017), at local sunset time around the world, the new moon will be easily visible in a few countries near the equator on the western side of South America. It is also likely to be visible to the human eye in other parts of the American continent south of latitude 30 deg N., and possibly also in a south-western strip of Africa, but not elsewhere in the world.

As a result of countries just missing out on having the moon visible on Saturday, it means that on Sunday, at local sunset, it will be very easily visible everywhere in the world.

Sunday in Pakistan is the 29th Ramadan. According to the official system there, the moon sighting committee will meet to receive and consider reports of sighting and whether to accept them. But if, as it appears very likely, the general population would be able to see the new moon, what should they do while the Ruyat-i Hilal committee is still deliberating? Should they believe their eyes or not?

Once there was a well-known Muslim religious leader whose followers obeyed him so implicitly that some of them said: If we see our leader committing an un-Islamic act with our own eyes, we will say that our eyes are deceiving us. On that principle, the general public in Pakistan could say: We won't believe our eyes until the Ruyat-i Hilal tells us to believe them!

Zahid Aziz

Assalamu alaikum! May the peace of Allah be upon you!

I have been told that the expression Allahu Akbar means ‘God is great’, or more accurately ‘God is greater than anything, His greatness is beyond and above anything and everything’. Wow! What praise for God! Surely these are beautiful words that should only be reserved for the beautiful Creator of heaven and earth! The words Allahu Akbar provide an eternity of contemplation for the believer, majestic praise that is higher than the highest mountain, a source of joy that is deeper than the deepest mountain, praise that is more radiant than the brightness of all the stars of the universe put together!

And yet, something has gone horribly wrong in the world today. Rather that, Allahu Akbar being a refrain of praise, or a symphony of love and adoration for the greatness of God, something sinister has occurred. The hearing of these words has sent, and is continuing to send, a chill of fear in the hearts and minds of its hearers around the world. For many, Allahu Akbar has become a death cry, and are words that are uttered just before a bomb is set off, or innocent people are shot down, slaughtered in an instant.

As a candle’s gentle flame is snuffed out in a moment, so those uttering Allahu Akbar are extinguishing light and love in the lives of those who are loved and treasured by Allah. Somewhere, somehow, people have traded in love for God and mankind, with pure hatred. Allahu Akbar has become a death sentence, and a label that has ‘re-branded’ the Creator of the universe as a God of hate, who delights in destruction. I call this — Identity Theft.

In this, and further articles, I want to share with you what I have learnt from my own personal reflections on the character of Allah that I have discovered in reading the pages of the Honoured Quran. I am a follower of Jesus, and do not ‘belong to the Islamic faith’ as text books would define a ‘Muslim’. But I am someone who thinks, reflects, and has an incredible love and respect for my Muslim brothers and sisters.

I know the great promises and prophecies in the Bible scriptures which foretold the growth and spread of Islam, and how God promised to protect and bless them, and use them mightily in the unfolding of his purposes. I am also aware of the bad press Islam has received in the hands of the media, and also in the hands of those who have been guilty of the Identity Theft. May the words that I write restore honour to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and ‘take back’ the beauty that belongs only to him, a beauty that has been stolen by those supposedly acting in his name — a beauty that has been tarnished and vandalised like a beautiful painting that has been ruined by graffiti and spray paint.

Those that are guilty of Identity Theft have not noticed how often the pages of the Honoured Quran refer to Allah as most Gracious, most Merciful! Each chapter of the Quran (except one) begins with the words In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. Does this sound like the character of the God represented by suicide bombers around the world, or those brandishing machine guns, gunning down other Muslims in mosques because they believe slightly different doctrine? Surely the qualities of mercy and grace should abound in the hearts and lives of those who openly declare to be worshippers of the one true God. We are told in the pages of the Quran: kind words and covering of faults are better than charity followed by injury (2:263). 

Those who have committed Identity Theft have forgotten to follow Allah’s advice in abounding in kindness and in the covering of faults of others. Instead, they have traded these noble qualities for intolerance and abusive words, condemning hearts and fault finding in others. Anyone who disagrees with them is to be exterminated! Should we not rather treat all people kindly, especially towards those who do not see things the way we do?

The Quran admonishes us to clothe ourselves with kindness, forgiveness and mercy towards others, even if they do not see things the way we do. The chapter with the title “Those who disagree” (Al-Kafirun) is a direct challenge to those who have committed Identity Theft. Rather than exterminating those who disagree with us in religious belief, we are told:

"Say: O ye that reject faith, I worship not that which ye worship, nor will ye worship that which I worship, and I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship, nor will ye worship that which I will worship. To you your way, and to me mine." (109:1-6)

People have different beliefs. We are also all at different stages in grasping spiritual truth. How tragic it would be to destroy a beautiful flower before it has come into full bloom! Imagine crushing what appears to be a lifeless seed, or cutting down an unimpressive green stem because we don’t see yet a beautiful flower! Those who commit Identity Theft do not allow people to change or give them time to come into full bloom of all that Allah intended them to become. Instead they are impatient and intolerant of others. How different this is to the way of Allah! In the Bible, we are told:

“But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” (Proverbs 4:18)

Just as the sun rises gradually each day, and moment by moment more light is unfolded, so too does our spiritual light and understanding take time to grow and mature. We don’t believe it all, get it all, or know it all — all at once. How sad, that those who commit Identity Theft have taken upon themselves to judge others and to take away the precious gift of life from others — all in the name of Allahu Akbar. Those who misrepresent the character of God have never truly recognised the greatness of God, and his merciful purposes.

(To be continued)

In a recent issue of Paigham Sulh, the Lahore Ahmadiyya Urdu organ, for March 2017, an article has been reproduced from the same paper of a hundred years ago (Paigham Sulh, 17 January 1917) about a writing of an Englishman, around the years 1670s, which is possibly the earliest defence of Islam penned in the West. The 1917 article itself appears to be taken from some other publication.

The name of the Englishman was not easy to identify due to being transcribed in Urdu, and appears as "Dr Henry Astab". After pondering for a while, I realized that the "A" could be the addition in Urdu to an English word, since English words beginning with the letter "s" are prefixed with an "alif" when spelt in Urdu. For example, the word "school" becomes "eskool" in Urdu. I have even heard Urdu speakers say they are suffering from "estress" when they mean they are under "stress".

Anyhow, after realizing the redundancy of the "A" of "Astab", I very quickly through a Google search identified the name as Dr Henry Stubbe, born in 1631. (His name is sometimes given as Stubbs.) The name of the writing is An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism. I called it as a "writing" rather than "book" because he left it as a manuscript which, after passing through several owners, was published in 1911 by 'The Islamic Society', London. It was edited by one Hafiz Mahmud Khan Shairani (d. 1946), a linguist and poet who was a lecturer at Punjab University Lahore.

You can read this book here (pdf file, 14 MB)

The editor also added an introduction, a brief life of Dr Stubbe and an appendix.

I understand there has been recent further research into the original manuscript. There is a 2014 publication, Henry Stubbe and the beginnings of Islam — The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism, edited by Nabil Matar, Columbia University Press.

(The spelling Originall is not a typo, but the spelling of the 17th century. In the 1911 publication also, in the text of the manuscript you may be puzzled by the 17th century spellings of various words such as: beleive, authentick, publick.)

To show a flavour of the book, I quote below the beginning of the last chapter of the manuscript:

"It is a vulgar Opinion that 'Mahomet propagated his Doctrine by the sword,' and not only compelled the Arabians at first to receive his Religion, but obliged his Successors by a perpetual Vow or Precept to endeavour the Extirpation of Christianity and all other Religions, thereby to render his own universal. But how generally soever this be beleived, and how great men soever they bee who support it, yet is it no other then a palpable Mistake." (p. 180)

In other words, it is commonly held that Muhammad propagated his religion by the sword and taught Muslims to do so as well, and to destroy Christianity and all other religions until only Islam remains. But however prevalent this belief may be, and regardless of the greatness of the men who hold it, it is nothing other than a clear mistake.

— Zahid Aziz

The daughter of a UK Jamaat member and good friend of mine (related to the late Mr N.A. Faruqui) is having a medical procedure for a very serious condition. Please pray that Allah grants the treatment to be successful and grants her a full recovery. Ameen.

Zahid Aziz