The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Book ‘The Prophet Promised in World Scriptures’ by Ali Unal and Harun Gultekin

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

Qadiani Jamaat translation of a statement in ‘Haqiqat-ul-Wahy’

In the Lahore Ahmadiyya literature, a statement by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from an Arabic section in his (largely) Urdu book Haqiqat-ul-Wahy has long been given as follows:

“And I have been called nabi by Allah by way of metaphor, not by way of reality.”

(Haqiqat-ul-Wahy, Zameema, pp. 64–65; Ruhani Khaza’in, v. 22, pp. 688–689).

Someone came across the Qadiani Jamaat English translation of the complete book Haqiqat-ul-Wahy and searched for long to find this statement in it, and failing to find it he then asked me where it was. So I looked in the Qadiani English translation and found it in the following words:

“I have been granted the name ‘Prophet’ by Allah, not in its original sense [of being raised independently], but as a subordinate Prophet.” (p. 878)

The statement in Hazrat Mirza sahib’s book is exactly as we have been translating it, the word for metaphor being majaz and the word for reality being haqiqat. A person being called “prophet” by way of metaphor means that he is not a prophet, and Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has made this point further clear by adding: “not by way of reality.”

If there could be any doubt about what he means by metaphor and reality, it is removed by his expla­nation, earlier in the same book, of how prophets of God were called as ‘sons of God’. He writes:

“In the earlier scriptures the perfectly righteous ones have been called sons of God. This also did not mean that in reality (haqiqat) they were sons of God, for this is heresy and God is clear of having sons and daughters. The meaning is, in fact, that God had manifested Himself as an image in the clear mirror of (the hearts of) these perfectly righteous ones. …

As to Jesus being called son of God in the Gospels, if Christians had remained within the limit of saying that just as Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon etc. were called sons of God in a metaphorical (isti‘arah) sense in the books of God, in the same way is Jesus so called, then there would have been no objection. For, just as these prophets were called son metaphorically in the books of the earlier prophets, our Holy Prophet has been called God in some prophecies. The fact is that neither were all those prophets sons of God, nor is the Holy Prophet God. All these are meta­phorical expressions based on love.”

(Haqiqat-ul-Wahy, pp. 63–64; Ruhani Khaza’in, v. 22, p. 65–66).

Just as, in the earlier scriptures, prophets had been called ‘sons of God’ or even ‘God’ metaphorically, similarly it was by way of metaphor that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was called ‘prophet’ in his revelation and in a Hadith prophecy about him. According to Islam, the prophets did not become sons of God or God in reality by any stretch of the imagination. However, Christians took Jesus for son of God in reality, which was a great error. This amply illustrates what is meant by meta­phor as opposed to reality. Similarly, Hazrat Mirza sahib was not a prophet in reality, and it is a great error to consider him so.

It is clear that the Qadiani translation of this statement has no justification whatsoever. They have converted “prophet by way of reality” into “independent prophet” and converted “being called prophet by way of metaphor” into “being a subordinate prophet”, while the statement contains no mention of independent or subordinate at all.

— Zahid Aziz

English Translation of Sahih al-Bukhari, Parts 1 to 7, now online

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

The claimed Saudi Arab sighting of the new moon — a newspaper story

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.

Eid-ul-Fitr Khutbah at Lahore Ahmadiyya UK centre, 5 June 2019

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

— Zahid Aziz

Eid-ul-Fitr prayers held in Middle East and parts of Europe even before moon was sighted anywhere in the world

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

Eid-ul-Fitr message by Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement

Here is the Eid-ul-Fitr Message, June 2019, of Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed, Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement.

Ramadan 2019

Welcome to the Ramadan Daily Quran Studies for 2019

(Note: Any new posts during Ramadan will be filed below this post.)

As an introduction, here is a short article (English translation / Urdu original) by Maulana Muhammad Ali containing some humble prayers, which he published for the Ramadan of the year 1948.

• Fast 1 — Fasting
• Fast 2 — Fasting: Its purposes
• Fast 3 — Fasting: Developing good qualities
• Fast 4 — Fasting: The month of Ramadan
• Fast 5 — Fasting: Further information
• Fast 6 — Prophets Isaiah and Buddha
• Fast 7 — The Quran: called an honoured book and a guide right at the beginning

• Fast 8 — The Quran: “No doubt” in the Quran
• Fast 9 — The Quran: “No doubt” in the Quran — the challenge of the Quran
• Fast 10 — The Quran is for all times
• Fast 11 — The Quran as a guide
• Fast 12 — Guidance for those who make efforts
• Fast 13 — Having belief requires knowledge
• Fast 14 — Another verse sheds more light

• Fast 15 — Belief in the Unseen
• Fast 16 — The Unseen
• Fast 17 — Prayer
• Fast 18 — Prayer (continued)
• Fast 19 — Prayer (continued)
• Fast 20 — Night prayers and simple life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad
• Fast 21 — Heart-felt nature of prayers in Islam

• Fast 22 — Other fundamentals of Islam, and charity
• Fast 23 — Charity (continued)
• Fast 24 — Charity (continued)
• Fast 25 — Submission to God and service of humanity as the fundamentals of Islam
• Fast 26 — Only the principles of religion bear fruit — not desires or labels
• Fast 27 — Belief in all earlier revelation
• Fast 28 — Belief in all earlier revelation and prophets of all nations

• Fast 29 — Some miscellaneous points for consideration
• Fast 30 — Conclusion to Chapter 2 of the Quran

Thanks to Allah for passing us through another month of Ramadan. May He keep us safe and well over the next year, ameen. Eid Mubarak to all readers!

Looking for Ramadan new moon in Saudi Arabia — before it’s born!

I refer to this news item in the Khaleej Times of the UAE:

According to it:

“Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court had called on its citizens and residents to inform the nearest court if they spot the Ramadan crescent with the naked eye or through binoculars on Saturday, May 4.”

This is quite absurd because the time of the birth of the moon was already known astronomically to be Sunday, May 5th 2019 at 1.47 am Saudi Arabian time (just after midnight).

This fact, commonly available on moon data websites, must have been known to the authorities of Saudi Arabia when they asked people to look for the lunar crescent on the evening of Saturday, May 4th.

So how could they think that someone might sight the moon on Saturday evening!

— Zahid Aziz

Friday Khutba on New Zealand mosque killings by Head of Lahore Ahmadiyya Dr A.K. Saeed

Above you can listen to the audio of the Friday Khutba delivered in Lahore on 22 March 2019 (in Urdu) by the Head of Lahore Ahmadiyya Hazrat Ameer Dr A.K. Saeed on the mosque killings in New Zealand. Early in his medical career, he had himself worked as a doctor in New Zealand hospitals for five years.