Claims of other Mujaddids

To belie the claim of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of being Mujaddid of the fourteenth century Hijra, it is often asserted that no one previous to him ever claimed to be mujaddid, and that even those great personalities who are generally considered as mujaddids of their times never made this claim themselves but were recognised as such by others after their death. We show below that mujaddids before the time of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad did make such claims.

1. Imam Al-Ghazali (d. 1111 C.E.)

He was mujaddid of the 6th century hijra. A translation of his book al-Munqidh min al-Dalal (Deliverance from Error), by W. Montgomery Watt, was published under the title The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953). It can be read at this link. We have also saved it locally here.

In the section entitled V. THE REASON FOR TEACHING AGAIN AFTER MY WITHDRAWAL FROM IT, Al-Ghazali writes:

“On this matter I consulted a number of men skilled in the science of the heart and with experience of contemplation. They unanimously advised me to abandon my retirement and leave the zawiyah (hospice) My resolution was further strengthened by numerous visions of good men in all of which alike I was given the assurance that this impulse was a source of good, was genuine guidance, and had been determined by God most high for the beginning of this century; for God most high has promised to revive His religion at the beginning of each century. My hope became strong, and all these considerations caused the favourable view of the project to prevail.

God most high facilitated my move to Naysabur to deal with this serious problem in Dhu’l-Qa’dah, the eleventh month of 499 (=July, 1106 A.D.). I had originally left Baghdad in Dhu’l-Qa`dah, 488, (= November, 1095), so that my period of retirement had extended to eleven years. It was God most high who determined this move, and it is an example of the wonderful way in which He determines events, since there was not a whisper of it in my heart while I was living in retirement. In the same way my departure from Baghdad and withdrawal from my, position there had not even occurred to my mind as a possibility. But God is the upsetter of hearts and positions. As the Tradition has it, ‘The heart of the believer is between two of the fingers of the Merciful’.

In myself I know that, even if I went back to the work of disseminating knowledge, yet I did not go back. To go back is to return to the previous state of things. Previously, however, I had been disseminating the knowledge by which worldly success is attained; by word and deed I had called men to it; and that had been my aim and intention. But now I am calling men to the knowledge whereby worldly success is given up and its low position in the scale of real worth is recognized. This is now my intention, my aim, my desire; God knows that this is so. It is my earnest longing that I may make myself and others better. I do not know whether I shall reach my goal or whether I shall be taken away while short of my object. I believe, however, both by certain faith and by intuition that there is no power and no might save with God, the high, the mighty, and that I do not move of myself but am moved by Him, I do not work of myself but am used by Him. I ask Him first of all to reform me and then to reform through me, to guide me and then to guide through me, to show me the truth of what is true and to grant of His bounty that I may follow it, and to show me the falsity of what is false and to grant of His bounty that I may turn away from it.”

(Underlining is ours.)

Al-Ghazali has clearly referred here to being appointed by God as mujaddid at the head of the century in accordance with the hadith about mujaddids, and to have been given a mission of reform and guidance of people from God.

Note that in the Introduction, the translator refers to Al-Ghazlai in the following words:

“Al-Ghazali has sometimes been acclaimed in both East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and he is by no means unworthy of that dignity.”

2. Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind (d. 1624)

He is commonly known as Mujaddid Alf-i Sani, meaning mujaddid of the second millennium of Islam.

2.1: In one of his letters he writes about himself:

“The one possessing these forms of spiritual knowledge is the Mujaddid of this millennium. … 

It should be known that, while a mujaddid comes in every century, but the mujaddid of a century is different from the mujaddid of a millennium. Their difference is as the difference between one hundred and one thousand, in fact, even more than this.”

(Daftar 2, Letter no. 4; see p. 35 in the Urdu translation of Maktubaat Hazrat Mujaddid Alf-i Sani by Maulana Sayyid Zawwar Husain Shah, published by Idara Mujaddidiyya, Karachi, Pakistan, 1991.)

At this link we display the title page of this book and the image of the page cited above, on which the quoted text is indicated by red lines.

2.2: Shaikh Ahmad writes in one of his letters, written while he was staying in the court of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, that on the night of 17th Ramadan he was teaching the king about Islam, and among the teachings he explained to Jahangir was the:

“finality of prophethood and the coming of a mujaddid in every century”.

(Daftar 3, Letter no. 43; Urdu translation cited above, p. 139.)

At this link again we display the title page of this book and the image of the page cited above, on which the quoted text is indicated by red lines.

2.3: There is a well known book about some aspects of the thought of Shaikh Ahmad, entitled The Mujaddid’s Conception of Tawhid by Burhan Ahmad Faruqi (Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, 1940).

At this link we provide the title pages and pages 1 to 4 from the Preliminary discussion in this book. Here the author writes:

“The Shaikh himself had the inspired belief that he was a Mujaddid.” (p. 2)

There is a footnote running from page 1 to page 2, in which the author begins by quoting the hadith about the coming of mujaddids, and then he adds:

”It is maintained that many persons have accordingly been the Mujaddids of their centuries,”

He then gives names of mujaddids of various centuries, from the first century to the ninth century, and adds: “and others of the subsequent centuries.”

This footnote then quotes two hadith reports which are believed to be specifically about Shaikh Ahmad.

In the footnote 1 which starts on page 2 and continues on page 3, it is stated:

“The Mujaddid keenly realises the need of a great Reformer in a letter to his son Khwaja Muhammad Sadiq (1000-1025 A.H.). … Further he expressly claims for himself the dignity of Mujaddid-i-Alf-i-Thani.”

References to his Maktubat (Collection of Letters) are given by the author for these statements.

On page 3 there is a footnote about Shah Waliullah in which it is stated that he “is said to be the ‘Mujaddid’ of his time.” (We discuss the claims of Shah Waliullah separately below.)

2.4: We further show the claims of Shaikh Ahmad from the study Sufism and Shariah — A Study of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi’s effort to reform Sufism, by Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari (The Islamic Foundation, Leicester, UK, 1986). The Islamic Foundation was set up by admirers of Maulana Maudoodi in the 1970s.

At this link we display pages 94 to 99 of this book, and mark certain passages by a red line in the left margin, which we refer to below.

It is clearly stated (p. 94 and over to p. 95) that Shaikh Ahmad claimed to be mujaddid, who would purify the prevailing concepts about Islam to the Islam of the Holy Prophet’s time. We are also told:

“…his claim that he is the renovator of Islam at the end of its first and beginning of the second millennium, high-sounding though it is, is nevertheless substantially true.” (p. 95)

Then there is a discussion of allegations against him, based on a vision of his, of claiming superiority over the Companions of the Holy Prophet including Hazrat Abu Bakr (p. 95). In answering this allegation the author writes: “it is not correct to interpret Sufi visions literally; one should try to see what their real purpose is” (p. 96). In this connection he gives as example a vision of Shah Waliullah and explains that the Shah’s dream meant that he was “being commissioned by the Prophet to revive his Islam”. (We discuss the claims of Shah Waliullah separately below.)

On pages 97 to 98, he quotes extracts from a letter by Shaikh Ahmad, containing the following words:

“I am a direct disciple of God, and my hand is a substitute for the hand of God. I am a disciple of Muhammad through a number of links. … but I am a direct disciple of God with no links in between. Hence I am a disciple of Muhammad as well as his colleague … Though I am a dependant, I have a kind of independence; even though I am a follower, I share in his honour… I share as a servant shares with his master.”

The author comments after these extracts that: “When he was questioned about this letter and his claim of partial independence from the Prophet, he explained the point at length” (p. 98).

He further states on this point:

“The other point which Sirhindi hints at here and has stated elsewhere more clearly, is that his walayat is not an ordinary kind of walayat, but one which in orientation and results is very close to the walayat of the Prophet.” (p. 98)

3. Shah Waliullah of Delhi (d. 1763)

Shah Waliullah is regarded as the next mujaddid after Shaikh Ahmad, being the mujaddid of the 12th century Hijra. His claim has already been mentioned incidentally in the two book quoted just above in 2.3 and 2.4.

3.1: In his well-known Arabic book Tafhimat Illahiyya, Shah Waliullah writes:

“Allah honoured me with the robe of mujaddidiyya … I was astonished and taken aback as to why I was granted mujaddidiyya.”

(Tafheem no. 227. See p. 510 of the Urdu translation of Tafhimat Illahiyya, Part 1, included in Majmu‘a Rasa'il Imam Shah Waliullah, vol. 7, Part 1, published by Shah Waliullah Institute, New Delhi, 2015)

At this link we display the title pages of this book and the image of the page cited above, on which the quoted text is indicated by red lines.

3.2: In his Persian book Izalat-ul-Khafa, Shah Waliullah writes:

“The Holy Prophet gave the news that at the head of every century a mujaddid would arise. And so it happened that at the head of every century a mujaddid kept on arising who revived the religion again. In the first century Umar ibn Abdul Aziz ended the tyranny of the kings and laid the foundations of good traditions. In the second century Imam Shafi'i laid the foundations of the principles and details of Fiqh. In the third century Abul Hasan al-Ashari consolidated the fundamentals of the Ahl Sunnah and held many debates with the followers of innovations. In the fourth century, Hakim, Bihaqi and others strengthened the knowledge of Hadith, … In the fifth century Ghazali introduced a new way and he reconciled law, spiritual sciences and theology and removed the differences between them. In the sixth century Imam Razi disseminated the knowledge of theology and Imam Nawawi consolidated the knowledge of jurisprudence. In this way, till now a mujaddid has come at the head of every century.”

(Izalat-ul-Khafa, see the Urdu translation by Maulana Ishtiaq Ahmad, Karachi, p. 377)

Later in the same book he writes:

“The promise of Allah to safeguard the Quran, ‘Surely We are its Guardian’, must be fulfilled. We also believe that there should be a guardian of the religion. This guarding can take three forms. The first form is that Allah Himself undertake the guarding by creating a Divine system in which He is always, from time to time, putting it in the heart of an individual to invite people to doing good and forbid them from doing wrong, and He also puts it in the heart of the nation to obey that individual. Allah has said: ‘Surely We are its Guardian’, and the Holy Prophet has said that in every century a man will be raised in the Ummah who will revive its religion.”

(Izalat-ul-Khafa, see the above cited Urdu translation, p. 423)

At this link we display the title page of this book and the image of the two pages cited above, on which the quoted text is indicated by red lines.

3.3: In the book Saints and Saviours of Islam by Dr Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi, Reader at the Shar-i-Hamdam Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Kashmir, India, published 2005, the following evaluation of Shah Waliullah is given:

“He was conscious of his importance and role. He has claimed in Tafhimat that he is the Mujadid of twelfth century after he completed the mission of propagating the secrets of Shariah and religion and started the reconciliation between the controversial problems.

At another place he says that he is the Mujadid, wasi and Qutb of the present times and God willing his endeavours will usher into a new life for the Muslims.” (p. 133)

At this link we display the title pages of this book and the image of the page cited above, on which the quoted text is indicated by red lines.

(This book is online in Google Books at this link.)

Views of Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi

Maulana Maudoodi, while he does not agree that mujaddids made it obligatory upon Muslims to accept them, nonetheless writes:

“…some revered men of the past have no doubt claimed that as inspired by Allah they were the mujaddids of their ages…”

(A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam, Islamic Publications Ltd., Lahore, 1979, p. 127)

He also expresses the following opinion about Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind and Shah Waliullah:

“Now let us consider the claims put forth by Shah Waliullah and the Mujaddid of Sirhind. I am too well known for my conviction that I do not regard our great men of the past as innocent and infallible. While I give them full credit for their good work, I do not spare them for their failings. … Therefore, let people say what they like but I cannot help saying that asserting themselves to be the mujaddids and referring time and again to their ‘Divine inspirations’ was one of the few mistakes committed by these great men.” (ibid., pp. 134–135)

Whatever may be Maulana Maudoodi’s views as to their “mistakes”, he has admitted that these great men such as Shah Waliullah and Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind did themselves claim to be mujaddids and referred to their Divine inspirations in this connection.