Ten misrepresented quotes clarified
by Dr. Zahid Aziz
|
A friend has forwarded to me a number of brief snippets from books
of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad which had been posted by a critic of
our Movement on an Internet discussion forum to allege that Hazrat
Mirza has expressed objectionable and un-Islamic views. It is quite
evident that the objector has not himself (or herself) come across
these extracts while actually reading the original books, but is
merely repeating these from some anti-Ahmadiyya source, and most
probably his source is similarly reproducing them from another source,
and so on. But at the beginning of this chain of sources there must
be someone who extracted them from the original books and willfully
misrepresented them by quoting them out of context. I deal with
each quote below.
1. Jesus lacking certain powers
The first quote is presented as follows:
And just as thousands of worms are born automatically in
the rainy season, and Hazrat Adam (as) was also born without mother
and father, this birth of Hazrat Isa does not prove his greatness.
Rather birth without having a father is an argument on deprivation
of certain powers. (Chashma Masihi; Ruhani Khazain,
v. 20, p. 356)
It is not clear exactly what is objectionable about this statement.
One can only assume that as the anti-Ahmadiyya Muslims believe Jesus
to be alive in heaven without eating, drinking or aging for 2000
years, they object to the statement that Jesus as a human mortal
could have lacked some physical powers. They tell a baseless story
about our Holy Prophet Muhammad that, as a mortal human being, he
fell under a magic spell cast upon him by an opponent of Islam but
they cannot tolerate any statement that places Jesus in the category
of human mortals.
To explain this quotation, which occurs in the short book Chashma
Masihi, it is necessary to understand why Hazrat Mirza wrote
this book. A Muslim wrote a letter to Hazrat Mirza saying that he
had read an anti-Islamic book Yanabiul Islam by a Christian
priest and it had made him start to doubt the truth of Islam. So
Hazrat Mirza, in reply, published Chashma Masihi in which
he exposes the hollowness of the arguments of the Christian book
and advises the worried Muslim that he need not be influenced by
the Christian criticism of Islam. It may be noted that Yanabiul
Islam was written in Persian by a Christian missionary in Iran,
the Rev. St. Clair-Tisdall, and was translated into English by Sir
William Muir, a well-known hostile critic of Islam, under the title
The Sources of Islam. Muir recommended that this book should
also be translated into Urdu and Arabic and made accessible to Muslims
everywhere. According to Muir this book proves with marvellous
power and erudition that much of the Quran can be traced
to human Sources existing daily around the Prophet, and thereby
Islam falls to the ground. He also adds:
Hitherto much labour has been spent in showing the
falsity and errors of Islam, as has been ably done by Pfander
and others. It has remained for our author
to prove
its sources to be of purely human origin; and that in so masterly
and effective a way that it seems impossible for good Moslems
to resist the conclusion drawn. And for all this the thanks of
the Christian world are eminently due to the Rev. W. St. Clair-Tisdall.
(Preface; bolding is ours)
This background shows what kind of anti-Islamic book Hazrat Mirza
was refuting, which had even made Muslims start doubting the truth
of Islam. How low have the present-day anti-Ahmadiyya propagandists
stooped, that they ignore and suppress the fact that he was defending
Islam against such hostile criticism, and pick out a line from his
book to attack the very man who is fighting for the cause of Islam!
Even supposing that his quoted statement were objectionable, shouldnt
they at least acknowledge that he wrote the book to defend Islam
against the vile allegation that the Holy Prophet Muhammad picked
up knowledge from human sources around him and falsely claimed it
to be revelation?
If we examine the context in which Hazrat Mirza wrote the above
statement about Jesus, we find he was answering the charge that
in the Quran Mary is mistakenly called the sister of Aaron and this
human error proves that the Quran is of the Holy Prophets
own making. Within his reply he adds that these objectors do
not look at their own house and see how the Gospels are the target
of so many objections, and then mentions examples of objections
to the Gospel account of the marriage of Mary with Joseph. Now he
is putting forward these objections as not necessarily his own beliefs
but as objections that an objector could justifiably raise, which
the Christian missionaries must answer. On the next page, again
answering the charge that the Holy Prophet copied material from
earlier scriptures, he writes:
If these objections can be raised against the Holy Prophet
Muhammad, even more objections can be raised against Jesus who
learnt the Torah, lesson by lesson, from an Israelite scholar
and had studied all the books of the Jews, and whose Gospel is
so full of material from the (Jewish) Bible and Talmud that we
only believe in it because of the command of the Holy Quran.
It is clear he is saying that an objector could raise similar objections
against Jesus that the Christians are raising against the Holy Prophet.
Therefore his statement, Rather birth without having a father
is an argument on deprivation of certain powers, may be in
the same sense, that it is an objection that a critic may raise
which Christians must answer, not that the objection is a part of
our beliefs.
2. Being praised by God
The second allegation is as follows:
It will be an unforgiving impudence if someone claims that Allah
does Hamd for him. The only man to have claimed Hamd
from Allah is none other than Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. (Haqiqat-ul-Wahi;
Ruhani Khazain, v. 22, p. 81)
The extract referred to is a revelation of Hazrat Mirza which reads:
Allah praises you. It is not a statement by him. Some
of the other quotes put forward by our critic are also revelations
of Hazrat Mirza. Therefore we should make clear that his revelations
must always be interpreted to conform to the Holy Quran and the
principles of Islam, as he himself did. It is entirely wrong to
give them meanings that are opposed to the teachings of Islam. He
wrote as follows:
It is the most appropriate and the primary principle that
non-Quranic sources must be put to the judgement of the Quran,
whether it is a hadith of the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, the vision of a holy man (wali) or
the revelation of a saint (qutb). (Hamamat-ul-Bushra;
Ruhani Khazain, v. 7, p. 216)
I do not verify any revelation of mine until I have put
it to the judgement of the Book of God. Know that whatever is
contrary to the Quran is false, heresy and ungodly. (ibid.,
p. 297)
The revelation of the true inspired ones cannot go against
the Quran. Whatever I have been made to understand (by God) about
the teachings of the Quran and whatever has been revealed to me
by God, I have accepted it on condition of correctness and authenticity.
It has been disclosed to me that it is correct, pure, and in accordance
with the Shariah.
If supposing there was something (i.e.
some revelation) which was against it (i.e. against the teachings
of Islam), we would ourselves throw all of it away like trash.
(Ainah Kamalat Islam; Ruhani Khazain, v.
5, p. 21)
I myself admit that if my claim of being Promised Messiah
is against the clear texts of the Quran and Hadith
then
even if my claim is supported by thousands of my revelations,
and I show not just one but millions of signs in support of it,
still all of these are worthless because no affair and no claim
and no sign can be accepted if it is opposed to the Quran and
authentic Hadith. (Majmua Ishtiharat, v. 1, p. 242)
Even certain statements in the Quran can be misunderstood if they
are not interpreted in conformity with the more fundamental passages
(for example, this is how the words of the Quran whatever
ayat We abrogate or cause to be forgotten in 2:106
are misunderstood as referring to the abrogation of verses contained
in the Quran itself).
Therefore the above revelation of Hazrat Mirza cannot be taken
to mean that Allah does Hamd for him in the manner
in which humans are required to praise Allah. According to classical
Arabic dictionaries, hamd means to praise, commend, speak
well of, or approve of, someone or something. It tells us in the
Holy Quran that the Holy Prophet Muhammad will be raised by Allah
to the rank of mahmud (maqam-an mahmud-an, 17:79)
because of his prayers, and in fact the same can apply to any believer.
Mahmud means one for whom hamd is done. Commentaries
of the Quran on this verse say that when, at the Day of Judgment,
the Holy Prophet is established on the rank of mahmud then
all people will praise him and Allah will also praise him. A human
being can therefore have hamd or praise done for him. The
name of the Holy Prophet, Muhammad, means not just a man
for whom hamd is done but a man for whom hamd is done
very greatly.
Dictionaries and commentaries of the Quran also tell us that an
act similar to hamd is shukr which means to thank,
praise and commend someone for some benefit received from them.
(For the close relationship between the meaning of hamd and
shukr, please see the following webpages for example:
http://www.bogvaerker.dk/Bookwright/hamd.html
http://www.ahya.org/books/fatihah/sf05.html )
While the Quran, of course, requires people to thank Allah or do
shukr of Allah, it also mentions Allah as shakir or
the One who does shukr or the act of thanking (2:158; 4:147).
The Quran mentions man as mashkur or one who is thanked for
his efforts (17:19; 76:22). When the expression literally meaning
that Allah thanks people is used, it is taken to mean
that He rewards them. There is an expression in Arabic shakarallahu
saya-hu, meaning literally Allah thanked him for
his efforts, and is understood to mean that Allah rewarded
and blessed that persons efforts. This expression has also
been quoted by Hazrat Mirza as occuring in his revelation. Obviously
it would be the height of misrepresentation if our opponents translated
it literally when it occurs in his revelation and then complained
that Mirza says Allah thanks him, when it actually bears
a different, proverbial meaning.
There is a hadith in Bukhari in which the Holy Prophet related
that when a man gave water to a thirsty dog as a good deed Allah
thanked him for that deed and forgave him. The translation
Allah thanked him is the one given by Muhsin Khan in
his English translation of Bukhari (see Volume 3, Book 43, Number
646 in his translation). The words for it in Arabic are: Shakar-allahu
la-hu.
According to the second of the webpages cited above, hamd
also carries the meaning of rida or pleasure, so that the
one doing the hamd is pleased with the one whom he is praising.
According to the Quran, being pleased or rida applies both
ways between the righteous people and Allah: Allah
is well pleased with them and they are well pleased with Him
radiy-allahu an-hum wa radu an-hu (9:100;
58:22). So Allah praising someone is equivalent to Allah
being well pleased with him.
3. Moon and Sun
The following extract has been presented by our critic:
You (i.e. MGA) are moon and I (i.e. God) am sun. And you
are sun and I am moon. You are my noor. I have come
down for you. (Tajilliyat-e-Illahiyah; Ruhani Khazain,
v. 20, p. 397)
The meaning of this revelation has been explained in the same place
by Hazrat Mirza as follows:
In this revelation the first time God has called me moon
and Himself as sun. This means that just as the source
of the light of the moon is the sun, in the same way the source
of my light is God. The second time God has called Himself as
the moon and called me as the sun. This
means that He will manifest His glorious light through me. He
was hidden. Now He will be manifested through me. The world was
not aware of His brightness but now His brightness will spread
everywhere in the world through me.
The first symbolism mentioned here (God as sun, man
as moon) is indicated in the Quran in the verses: By
the sun and his brightness, and the moon when she borrows light
from him (91:1-2). As to sun being the man sent
by God, this is indicated when the Quran speaks of the Holy Prophet
as: an inviter to Allah
and as a light-giving sun
(33:46) and says: A Book We have revealed to you that you
may bring forth people from darkness into light (14:1).
Hazrat Mirza explains the same revelation elsewhere as follows:
The fact is that as regards those persons who have a connection
of personal love with God, He sometimes uses such expressions
about them in a metaphorical sense, from which the foolish
people want to prove their Divinity. There are more such expressions
about me than even about Jesus, as Allah said addressing me: O
moon, O sun, you are from Me and I am from you. Now a person
may misconstrue these words in some other direction but the true
meaning is that first God made me moon because like
the moon I came from that Real Sun, and then He became moon
because the glory of His light was manifested through me and will
do so in the future. (Chashma Masihi; Ruhani Khazain,
v. 20, p. 375-376)
Foolish are they, he says, who infer a claim to Divinity from such
expressions.
4. My destination and with Me
A revelation is quoted in which God addresses him as follows: You
are My destination (murad) and you are with Me (Ruhani
Khazain, v. 22, p. 82).
The first part is also found in the writings of the highly renowned
and popular saint Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind (d. 1624), who is famed
throughout the Indian subcontinent by the name of Mujaddid Alf-i
Sani or mujaddid of the second millenium of Islam and who lived
under the reigns of the Moghul emperors Akbar and Jehangir. He wrote:
“I am the disciple (murid) of God and also His intention
(murad). My devotion to God is linked directly to Him without
any intermediary. My hand is the representative of God’s hand.
Glory be to Him! So I am the disciple of the Holy Prophet Muhammad
as well as his spiritual brother.” (Maktubat, Daftar III,
letter no. 87, p. 209)
So our critics would also have to denounce Mujaddid Alf-i Sani as
a claimant to being God if they wish to condemn Hazrat Mirza in
this way. The expression murad of God simply means he has
been raised to fulfil the mission of God or what God intends.
As to the words you are with Me (anta may),
Allah throughout the Quran tells us that He is with the righteous
of one kind or another. For example, Allah is with (ma)
the believers (8:19), Allah is with (ma) the
patient (2: 153), Allah is surely with (ma) the doers
of good (29:69), Allah is with (ma) those who
keep their duty (2:194), and Moses said: surely my Lord
is with me (maiya) (26:62). If Allah is with
such righteous persons, then conversely they are with Allah, and
Allah can say of such a man: you are with Me. It may
be objected that the meaning of Allah being with the believers is
that He assists and helps them, but to say that someone is with
Allah implies that that man is assisting and helping Allah, which
Allah does not need from any human being. However, in the Quran
Allah commands the Muslims to be His helpers: O you who believe,
be helpers of Allah (ansarullah) (61: 14). Obviously,
the words helpers of Allah mean helpers in His cause. Are
these helpers not with Allah?
We may quote here a most famous, often-quoted verse of poetry by Dr
Allama Iqbal which, according to recent news, is on display on a mural
at the new Lahore airport in Pakistan. It runs:
Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer se pehley, Khuda bande
se khud poochhe: bata teri raza kya hai?
Elevate yourself so high that God, before issuing every
decree of destiny, should ask His servant: Tell me, what would
you like?
Would our critic denounce this statement as being totally the
opposite of the teaching of Islam that it is God Who decides
upon the decrees of destiny as He likes and mans role is to
accept without question whatever is decreed for him by God?
5. Seeing himself as God in vision
Our critic then gives two quotes from Kitab-ul-Bariyya,
from which we give the essential part below:
I saw in one of my visions that I myself am God and believed
that I am Him
in this condition I was saying that we want
a new system and new heaven and new earth. Thus initially I created
heaven and earth
. Then I said that now we will create
human from the extract of earth. (Ruhani Khazain,
v. 13, p. 103-105)
If the critic had actually read these pages he would have discovered
that Hazrat Mirza is publishing these revelations in order to show
that such a person does not claim to be God. He is responding
to the Christian belief that certain statements of Jesus in the
Gospels prove that he was claiming to be God, and in this connection
he writes in the above very pages:
It should also be remembered that these ideas were not
contained in the teachings of Jesus, and his teachings did not
add anything to the Torah. He had said very plainly that he was
a human being. True, just as the chosen ones of God receive titles
of honour, nearness and love from the Exalted God, or just as
those people themselves while absorbed in Divine love, utter words
of love and union [with God], similar was his case. What doubt
is there that, whether someone loves a human being or God, when
that love reaches perfection, the lover definitely feels that
his soul and that of the beloved have become one. At the stage
of spiritual annihilation, many a time he sees himself as one
with the beloved. As, for example, the Exalted God addressing
my humble self in His revelations says:
Then after quoting many of his own revelations at length, he draws
this conclusion:
Is it not true that if someone’s Divinity can be inferred
from such revelations and statements then from these revelations
of mine my Divinity — I seek refuge with God — will be
better established than that of Jesus? And more than that of anyone,
the Divinity of our leader and master, the Holy Prophet Muhammad
can be established. For, his revelation does not only contain
the verse “those who swear allegiance to thee do but swear allegiance
to Allah”, and not only that the Exalted God has called the Holy
Prophet’s hand as God’s own hand, and has declared each of his
actions as God’s own action, and by saying “Nor does he speak
out of desire, it is naught but revelation that is revealed” He
has declared all his words to be God’s own words, but at one place
He has called all the people his (the Holy Prophet’s) servants,
as He has said: “(O Prophet) say (to people): O my servants”.
Hence it is obvious that the Divinity of our Prophet can be established
so plainly and clearly from these sacred words that the Divinity
of Jesus cannot possibly be established to the same degree from
the statements in the Gospels. Let alone this chief of the two
worlds, the Holy Prophet, whose status is so great, the Christian
clergymen should consider with justice even these revelations
of mine, and then be judges themselves and decide whether it is
not true that if such statements can establish Divinity then my
revelations are a much stronger testimony to my Divinity than
those of Jesus are to his Divinity.
His whole argument is that such revelations do not establish the
recipients Divinity but rather his spiritual annihilation
in his beloved God, and if there is anyone above all whose revelations
can prove him to be God then it is the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
Elsewhere he writes the following explanation:
Once in a vision I saw that I created a new earth and a
new heaven and then I said, let us now create man. At this the
foolish Maulvis raised a storm that look, he has now claimed to
be God, but this vision meant that God would produce such a transformation
at my hands that it would be as if the heaven and the earth had
become new, and real humans would come into existence. (Chashma-i
Masihi; Ruhani Khazain, v. 20, p. 375-376)
In another place where he quotes similar revelations of his, he
explains in a footnote:
It must be remembered that God the Most High is clear of
having any sons. No one is His partner and no one is His son.
No one has the right to say I am God or I am
the son of God. These words here are metaphorical and figurative.
In the Holy Quran God has declared the hand of the Holy Prophet
Muhammad as His own hand and said: It is the hand of Allah
that is above their hands (48:10). Similarly, instead of
Say, O servants of Allah, He revealed: Say,
O My servants (39:10), and also said: Remember Allah
as you remember your forefathers (2:200). So you must read
the word of God with intelligence and caution, and accept these
as allegorical matters, and dont try to determine their
exact nature. Leave the actual nature to God and believe that
God is clear of taking anyone as son although much is found in
his revelation as allegory. Save yourself from following the allegorical
matters and being destroyed thereby. Among the revelations about
me which are in clear words there is this one which is recorded
in Barahin Ahmadiyya: Say, I am a mortal like you.
It is revealed to me that your God is only One God, and all good
lies in the Quran. (Dafiul-Bala; Ruhani
Khazain, v. 18, p. 227, footnote)
He is referring in all these extracts to the concept of fana
fillah which is a recognised doctrine among the great auliya
of Islam. This concept is indicated in the Quran, for example in
the verse: (we take) the colour of Allah, and who is better
in colour than Allah (2:138). By taking the colour of Allah
a man can reach the stage of being fana fillah. Perhaps our
critics would like to answer whether they consider this verse as
teaching that Allah is of a particular physical colour, which man
can take on from Him as well!
This concept is also referred to in Hadith. For example, one report
reads:
“The Messenger of Allah said, Allah says:
My servant keeps
on coming closer to Me through performing nawafil (extra
good deeds besides what is obligatory) till I love him. When I
love a man, I am the Hearing with which he hears, I am the Sight
with which he sees, I am the Hands with which he holds, and I
am the Feet with which he walks.” (Sahih Bukhari, 81:38.
In Muhsin Khans translation this hadith is at Volume 8,
Book 76, Number 509).
Here the senses and limbs of a beloved of Allah are said to act
as if they were Allahs own. This report goes on to record
that Allah says:
I do not hesitate to do anything as I hesitate to take
the soul of the believer, for he hates death, and I hate to disappoint
him.
Would our critic raise the objection here: How can Allah hesitate
to do what He wills, and how can He hate to disappoint a
human being?
Allah falling ill, needing food and drink
A well-known hadith in the collection of Sahih Muslim runs as follows:
The Messenger of Allah said that Allah will say on the
Day of Judgment: O son of Adam, I was sick and you did not
visit to ask after Me. He will say: O Lord, how could
I ask after You when You are the Lord of the Worlds? Allah
will say: You do not know that such and such servant of
Mine was sick and you did not visit him. If you had gone to see
how he was, you would have found Me with Him.
The same exchange is then repeated with Allah saying O son
of Adam, I asked you for food, but you did not feed Me, the
man asking how could I have fed You when You are the Lord
of the Worlds?, and Allah replying: Do you not know
that such and such a servant of Mine asked you for food but you
did not feed him. This is again repeated with Allah saying
O son of Adam, I asked you for water, but you did not give
Me water to drink, the man asking how could I give You
water to drink when You are the Lord of the Worlds?, and Allah
replying: Such and such a servant of Mine asked you for water
but you did not give him water to drink. (Sahih Muslim,
Book: Goodness and good treatment and behaviour, Chapter:
Visiting the sick).
Here Allah identifies Himself with the sick and the hungry and
the thirsty and says that meeting their needs is like meeting Allahs
needs. Would our critic object here that it is highly offensive
to describe Allah as falling ill and needing humans to visit Him
in his illness, and as being hungry and thirsty and needing people
to give Him food and drink?
6. Abu Lahab
The next allegation is as follows:
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad says that Abu Lahab means a Maulvi from
Delhi. (Haqiqat-ul-Wahi; Ruhani Khazain, v.
22, p. 84)
Here he is commenting on one of his own revelations, Abu
Lahabs hands will perish and he will perish, not on
the same words as they occur in the Quran, as he writes in a footnote:
Here by Abu Lahab is meant a Maulvi of Delhi who has now
died. This prophecy was made 35 years ago and was published in
Barahin Ahmadiyya.
When he originally published his revelations in Barahin Ahmadiyya,
some of which were in the words of the Quran, Maulvi Muhammad Husain
Batalvi (later an opponent) commented on this in his lengthy review
of this book. He wrote:
By claiming that these verses have been revealed to him,
he means that he has been spoken to by God in the same words as
were used to address various prophets in the Quran or earlier
scriptures. When applied to him, the verses bear a significance
different from their original one.
A Muslim saint in north-west India just prior to Hazrat Mirzas
time, by the name of Maulvi Abdullah Ghaznavi, also had many revelations
consisting of passages from the Quran which were published in his
biography. When someone raised an objection to this, his son Maulvi
Abdul Jabbar Ghaznavi (who was an opponent of Hazrat Mirza) replied:
If someone receives a Divine revelation (ilham)
which is some verse of the Quran addressed particularly to the
Holy Prophet Muhammad, the recipient of this revelation would
take it as referring to himself, and would interpret it in the
light of his own circumstances and draw a lesson from it.
(Asbat al-ilham, pp. 142 – 143)
Thus the revelation to Hazrat Mirza about Abu Lahab refers to his
own circumstances. It may be noted that the Abu Lahab (father
of the flame) of the Holy Prophets time was called by
this epithet because of certain attributes of his, and it was not
his personal name. This title can also be applied to someone else
for similar reasons, as Hazrat Mirza has done to a Maulvi who fanned
the flames of takfir against him.
7. Revealed near Qadian
The next allegations states:
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad reveals that it is near Qadian.
(Haqiqat-ul-Wahi; Ruhani Khazain, v. 22, p. 91)
I assume it is being alleged that he is saying that the Quran was
revealed near Qadian! The critics reference is to the revelation:
Surely We have revealed it near Qadian. With truth We revealed
it and with truth it has come. Allah and His Messenger spoke the
truth and the will of Allah was fulfilled. Hazrat Mirza has
elsewhere elaborated this revelation as follows:
It shows that God had indicated my advent in Qadian beforehand
as a prophecy in the Divine scriptures. (Izala Auham;
Ruhani Khazain, v. 3, p. 139, footnote)
The revealing mentioned here is not the revelation of the Quran
but the coming of Hazrat Mirza with his mission of reform.
8. Called by names of prophets
The next quote presented is the following:
I am Maseeh-e-Zamaan, I am the Kaleem-e-Khuda (i.e. Moses),
I am Muhammad, I am Ahmad Mujtaba. (Tiryaq-ul-Qulub,
p. 3; Ruhani Khazain, v. 15, p. 134)
Again, this refers to the recognised Islamic concept of fana
fir-rasul explained by Muslim spiritual writers from ancient
to present times. Hazrat Mirza writes:
“Of all the leaders of Tasawwuf that there have been till
the present day, not even one has disagreed with the point that
in this religion the path to become the likes of prophets is open,
as the Holy Prophet Muhammad has given the glad tidings for spiritual
and godly learned persons that ‘the Ulama of my nation are like
the Israelite Prophets’. The words of Abu Yazid Bustami given
below, which are recorded in Tazkirat al-Auliya by Farid-ud-Din
Attar, and are also found in other reliable works, are on this
basis, as he says: ‘I am Adam, I am Seth, I am Noah, I am Abraham,
I am Moses, I am Jesus, I am Muhammad, peace be upon him and upon
all these brothers of his.’ ... Similarly, Sayyid Abdul Qadir
Jilani, in his book Futuh al-Ghaib, refers to this point,
i.e. that man, by leaving his ego and annihilating himself in
God, becomes the like, rather the very form, of the prophets.”
(Izala Auham; Ruhani Khazain, v. 3, p. 230-231)
Other examples of classical saints, apart from Abu Yazid Bustami
and Abdul Qadir Jilani, who called themselves by names of prophets
include Abu Bakr Shibli, Jalal-ud-Din Rumi and Muin-ud-Din Chishti.
Among modern religious scholars we may give the following examples.
1. Maulana Mahmud-ul-Hasan of Deoband wrote a long poem in eulogy
of his two spiritual guides, Maulvi Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (d. 1905)
and Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanotavi (d. 1880), who founded the Deoband
school in 1867. In it he says:
“Qasim the good and Rashid Ahmad, both possessors of glory, the
two of them were the Messiah of the age and Joseph of Canaan.
I say that the two of them were like Moses and Amran. To
be in their company and to serve them was, for the dead hearts,
nothing less than (the dead) being commanded by Jesus to Arise.”
(Kuliyat Shaikh al-Hind, pp. 14 – 17)
2. The famous Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, in his magazine Al-Imdad,
published a letter from a disciple explaining a disturbing problem
as follows:
“I see in a dream that while reciting the Kalima, ‘La ilaha
ill-Allah, Muhammad-ur Rasul-ullah’, I am using your name
instead of saying Muhammad-ur Rasul-ullah. Thinking that
I am wrong, I repeat the Kalima, but despite wishing in
my heart to say it correctly, my tongue involuntarily says Ashraf
Ali instead of the Holy Prophet’s name.
When I wake up
and remember my mistake in the Kalima,
to make amends
for the mistake I send blessings upon the Holy Prophet. However,
I am still saying: ‘Allahumma salli ala sayyidi-na wa nabiyi-na
wa maulana Ashraf Ali’ even though I am awake and not
dreaming. But I am helpless, and my tongue is not in my control.”
Maulana Ashraf Ali responded by giving the following explanation
of this incident:
“In this incident, it was intended to satisfy you that the one
to whom you turn for spiritual guidance (i.e. Ashraf Ali) is a
follower of the Holy Prophet’s Sunna.” (Monthly Al-Imdad,
issue for the month of Safar, 1336 A.H., circa 1918,
p. 35)
3. Allama Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal writes in a very well-known poetic
verse regarding the perfect believer:
“He is Kalim (Moses), he is Masih (Messiah), he
is Khalil (Abraham),
He is Muhammad, he is the Book (Quran), he is Gabriel.”
An interpreter of Iqbal, Professor Yusuf Salim Chishti, explains
these verses as follows:
He (the perfect believer) is the heir to the spiritual
qualities of Moses, Jesus, Abraham and Muhammad, peace be upon
them all. In him is manifested the image of the attributes of
the prophets. He is potentially a prophet, but not actually a
prophet because prophethood has come to an end. (Sharh
Jawaid Nama, Ishrat Publishing House, Anarkali, Lahore, 1956,
pp. 1198 –1199.)
9. Holy Prophets place of refuge
The next quotation is presented as follows:
And God chose such an ignominious place to hide/bury the
Holy Prophet that is awfully stinking and dark and cramped and
the place of excreta of insects
(Ruhani Khazain,
v. 17, p. 205)
There is no text in the original corresponding to hide/bury.
The bury has been added by the critic, or by his
source, as a fabrication. The purpose of this deliberate fabrication
is to create the false impression that Hazrat Mirza is speaking
of the burial place of the Holy Prophet, whereas he is talking about
the cave of Thaur in which the Holy Prophet hid with Abu Bakr during
his hijra. What he actually writes here is that this statement
is the implication of the beliefs of his Muslim opponents.
In the above-quoted words he is expressing the result of the beliefs
of our opponents, like for example our critic! I translate below
the entire footnote in which this extract occurs:
I have written again and again that this great distinction
that is given to Jesus, of going up to heaven alive, staying alive
for so long, and then returning, is an insult to our Holy Prophet
Muhammad from every aspect and it makes Jesus have such a close
connection with God as has no limits. For example, the Holy Prophet
Muhammad did not reach even the age of a hundred years but Jesus
is alive even after almost two thousand years. And God chose
such an ignominious place to hide the Holy Prophet that is awfully
stinking and dark and cramped and the place of excreta of insects
but He took Jesus to heaven which is the location of paradise
and the vicinity of the residence of angels. Now tell us:
to whom did God show more love, to whom did He accord more respect,
to whom did He grant a place near to Himself, and to whom did
He give the distinction of returning back? (Tuhfa Golarwiya;
Ruhani Khazain, v.17, p. 205)
The underlined words above are expressed by him as the conclusion
of the beliefs of his Muslim opponents and as an insult they
are offering to the Holy Prophet Muhammad. It appears that when
his opponents were unable to refute his charge that their
belief about Jesus constitutes an insult to the Holy Prophet Muhammad,
they extracted this statement and quoted it to make the false and
fabricated allegation that he was insulting the Holy Prophet in
this way, when in fact what he wrote was: O my opponents, you are
insulting the Holy Prophet in this way! This is pure, sheer and
blatant fraud committed by our critic or by the sources he is
relying upon.
The fact that he is referring here to the cave of Thaur during
the hijra of the Holy Prophet is clear from his discussion
elsewhere of the same point. For example, he wrote in another book
about the same Muslim opponents:
they consider that the negation of murder, denial
of killing on the cross, and the word raf‘ prove only that
Jesus, having escaped from the hands of the Jews, went to heaven
with his physical body. As if, besides heaven, God the Most High
could find no place on earth to conceal him. In order to protect
our Holy Prophet Muhammad from the hands of the disbelievers,
a terrifying cave full of snakes was enough. But enemies of the
Messiah would not have left him anywhere on the earth, whatever
plan God the Most High may have devised to save him here, so God
having become helpless against the Jews — God forbid — was compelled
to choose heaven for him! (Kitab-ul-Bariyya; Ruhani
Khazain, v. 13, p. 227, footnote)
It is clear from the description of the cave of Thaur in Hadith
that it was indeed a terrifying, deadly place, inside which Hazrat
Abu Bakr was bitten by a poisonous snake.
10. Seeing himself as God in vision
The last quotation presented is the following:
I saw in my dream that I am Allah and I believed no doubt
I am the one who created the heaven. (Ainah Kamalat
Islam, p. 564)
This point has been fully dealt with under extract number 5 above
in connection with another quotation. It may be added that just
two pages after the extract cited above he writes:
We do not interpret this experience according to the meanings
in the books of the believers in wahdat-ul-wujud nor according
to the beliefs of the Hulul. On the contrary, this experience
is in accordance with the hadith of the Holy Prophet Muhammad
contained in Bukhari explaining the rank of nearness to God that
is attained by His righteous servants. (p. 566)
The doctrine of wahdat-ul-wujud is that everything is a
part of God and the Hulul believe that God can appear in human form.
These are the concepts he is rejecting. The hadith he is referring
to has been quoted above under point number 5 (My servant
keeps on coming closer to Me through performing nawafil till
I love him. When I love a man, I am the Hearing with which he hears,
I am the Sight with which he sees, I am the Hands with which he
holds, and I am the Feet with which he walks.”) Hazrat Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad writes here that his vision is in accordance with this hadith
in Bukhari.
Appendix: Concept of God held by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has written much, and repeatedly, on
the Islamic teachings about God and His attributes. In order to
refute the false impression our critics are trying to create regarding
his beliefs about God, by presenting the above quotes out of context,
we reproduce below two examples of what he taught about the Islamic
concept of God.
It says in the Holy Quran that God is one and without any partner in His excellent qualities, and He is free from every defect. In Him are found all the perfect attributes and by Him are displayed all the mighty powers. From Him the whole creation comes into existence and to Him all the affairs return (for decision and judgment). While being remote, He is very near, and while being near, He is still far off. He is above all but still it cannot be said that beneath Him there is anything else, and He is the most hidden of all things, but it cannot be said of any thing that it is more apparent than He. He is Himself living and everything has its life from Him. He is His own support and everything finds support from Him. He bears (i.e., maintains) everything and there is nothing that bears Him. Nothing has come into existence independently of Him and nothing can remain existing without Him. He comprehends all, but the manner in which He does so, cannot be described. He is the light of everything that is in earth and heavens, and every light has shone forth from His hand and is a reflection of His person. He is the Lord of all the worlds and there is no soul which has not been brought forth by Him and has come into existence by itself. Nor is there any faculty of a soul which has not been brought into existence by Him and came by itself.
(Lecture Lahore; Ruhani Khazain, v. 20, p.
152–153)
A little further on, quoting chapter 112 of the Holy Quran, he
explains:
Your God is the God Who is one in His person and in His attributes. No being is eternal and everlasting like Him, nor does any being have its attributes like His attributes. … As there is nothing that is like Him, so there is nothing whose attributes are like His attributes. If there were any defect in one of His attributes, all His attributes would be defective. Therefore His unity cannot be established unless He is regarded as one and without any partner in His person as well as His attributes. … God is neither a son nor a father, for He stands in need of none, not even of a father or a son. This is the doctrine of Unity taught by the Holy Quran which is necessary for a perfect faith. (p. 154–155)
Elsewhere he writes:
Listen, all those who will listen, what it is that God
desires of you? It is just that you become entirely His, and take
no one to be a partner with Him, neither in heaven nor on earth.
Our God is that God Who is alive even now as He was alive before,
Who speaks even now as He spoke before, and Who hears even now
as He used to hear before. It is a baseless notion that He hears
in this age but does not speak. Nay, He hears and He also speaks.
All His attributes are eternal; none has ceased, nor shall any
ever cease. He is the One, without any partner, Who has no son
nor wife. He is the unique Who has no equal, like Whom there is
none having unique attributes. There is no one of equal rank with
Him, and no one sharing the same attributes. There is no power
which He lacks. He is near despite being far, and He is far despite
being near. He can show Himself to persons of spiritual vision
as a likeness, but He has neither body nor form. He is above all,
but we cannot say that anything else is below Him. He is on the
Divine Throne, but we cannot say that He is not on earth. He combines
in Himself all the perfect attributes, and displays all that is
truly praiseworthy. He is the source of all virtues, the possessor
of all the powers, the origin of all grace, the One to Whom all
things return, the King of all realms, Who has every perfection
and is free from every defect and weakness. Only to Him is due
the worship of those on earth and those in heaven. Nothing is
impossible for Him; all the souls and their powers, and all the
particles of matter and their powers, are but His creation, and
nothing can come into existence without Him. He shows Himself
by means of His power and might and signs; only through these
can we find Him. He is ever manifesting Himself to the righteous,
and shows them the wonders of His power. It is from this that
He is recognised, and the path approved of by Him is known. He
sees, but without eyes; He hears, but without ears; and He speaks,
but without a tongue. Likewise, to create something out of nothing
is also His work. Just as you see that in a scene in a dream He
creates a whole world without any matter, and shows non-existent
things to be existent. Thus such are all the wonders of His power.
Unwise is the one who denies His power, and blind is the one who
is ignorant of His subtle might. He does, and can do, anything
except that which is against His dignity or contrary to His promises.
He is the only One in His person, in His attributes, in His works,
and in His power. (Al-Wasiyya; Ruhani Khazain,
v. 20, p. 309-311)
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