Translators Preface
This booklet was written in Urdu in the early 1980s by Maulana Hafiz
Sher Mohammad, the eminent scholar and distinguished international
missionary of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore, Pakistan.
It traces chronologically the views expressed by Allama Dr. Sir Muhammad
Iqbal regarding the Ahmadiyya Movement and its Founder, and Iqbals
relations with the Movement and its prominent figures, from the 1890s
to his death in 1938.
The need for such a survey arises because some of Iqbals statements
which he published in the last four years of his life, repudiating
the Ahmadiyya Movement, have been given vast circulation by the
opponents of the Movement. These critics are capitalising on the
renown and popularity of Iqbal in parts of the Muslim world, particularly
Pakistan, to argue that a man of his historic stature and authority
in matters Islamic had condemned the Ahmadiyya Movement as a danger
which must be eliminated from Islam. These particular writings of
Iqbal are presented, on a world-wide scale, as being somehow the
ultimate and irrefutable proof that Ahmadis must be expelled from
the ranks of the Muslims.
However, these hostile opinions of Iqbal must be placed in the
context of the whole of his attitude towards the Ahmadiyya Movement,
going back to his earliest days. This book shows that Iqbal held
the Ahmadiyya Movement in the highest admiration and praised it
openly, even sharing public platforms with its leaders, during a
period of more than thirty years till he changed his stance about
four years before his death. Clearly this reversal, coming 25 years
after the passing away of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, cannot be ascribed
to any of the latters beliefs or teachings which Iqbal had known
for long! This book shows that Iqbals turn-about was due to a combination
of the extreme, unacceptable beliefs coined by the Qadianis, on
the one hand, and the political considerations facing Dr. Iqbal
on the other.
It should be noted that in the period in the 1930s when Dr. Iqbal
issued various statements in condemnation of the Ahmadiyya Movement
as a whole, and this controversy was raging among the Muslims of
the then India, full refutations of his new-found views were published
by the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore. Many such replies
appeared in its Urdu and English periodicals (Paigham Sulh
and The Light) from the pens of the most eminent leaders
of the Movement, including Maulana Muhammad Ali. One reply in English
by Maulana Muhammad Ali was published in 1935 as a pamphlet entitled
Dr. Iqbals Statement re. the Qadianis.
As to the present booklet, the late Hafiz Sher Mohammad sent me
the manuscript of his Urdu work for translation into English more
than ten years ago. The translation first appeared in The Islamic
Review, then of California, U.S.A., not long after. A little
later in 1988, the original Urdu work was published by the Ahmadiyya
Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Bombay, India, through the kind efforts
of Mr. Abdul Razak.
Last year I published the English translation again in The Light
& Islamic Review, of Columbus, Ohio, after some revision.
The same is now being published in the form of this booklet, with
further minor revision and some additional material which had been
missed out in the earlier translations.
Zahid Aziz, Dr.
Nottingham, England,
June 1995.
|
Top