| Differences in
belief of Lahore Ahmadis and
Qadianis
Reasons for the
Split
(The Light & Islamic Review: Vol. 69;
No. 4; July-August 1992; p. 15-18)
Introduction /
Confirmation by Mirza Mahmud Ahmad /
Funeral Prayers for other Muslims Prohibited /
Another Statement by Maulana Muhammad Ali
It is very frequently asked, What
are the differences of belief between the Lahore Ahmadis and the
Qadianis, and what were the reasons which led to a Split within the
Ahmadiyya Movement in the year 1914. The answers are quite clear and
simple. Let us first give the observations, made at that very time,
by the renowned Muslim religious scholar and journalist, Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad (who many years later held high office in the Indian
government). The following is what he reported in his newspaper,
Al-Hilal, in its issue
for 25 March 1914:
"For some time, there were two parties in
this Jama`at, on the issue of
takfir. One group
believed that non-Ahmadi Muslims are Muslims, even though they may
not acknowledge Mirza sahib's claims. The other group, however,
stated clearly and plainly that those people who do not believe in
Mirza sahib are definitely kafir - inna
li-llahi wa inna ilai-hi raji`un.
"The head of the latter group is Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad,
and they have now declared him to be their khalifa, but the first
group does not accept this. The writing published in this connection
by Maulana Muhammad Ali, and the wonderful courage with which he has
stayed in Qadian to express his belief, is truly an event which shall
ever be regarded as a memorable event of this year."
The reason for the split is clearly given here.
Shortly afterwards, in 1918, Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote a booklet in
English entitled The
Split, about the doctrinal differences which
caused the breach. It begins as follows:
"This is the fourth tract of the series
of tracts on the Ahmadiyya movement, and it deals with the division
in the movement which was brought about on the death of Maulvi
Nur-ud-Din on the 13th March 1914, though the seed of it was sown, as
the following pages will show, about three years earlier. I have been
compelled to deal with this internal difference in a separate tract,
as a great misconception prevails as to the true reasons of the split
which is due, not to a desire to work separately, but to far-reaching
differences on the cardinal principles of the religion of Islam.
Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, a son of the Founder of the movement, who is the
present head of the Qadian section of the community, began to drift
away from the basic principles of the Islamic faith about three years
after the death of the Promised Messiah, going so far as to declare
plainly that the hundreds of millions of Muslims, living in the
world, should be no more treated as Muslims. He has laid down the
basis of creating a breach with Islam itself, seeking to lay with the
Ahmadiyya movement, which was a movement strictly within the circle
of Islam, foundations of a new religion altogether."
A few pages further on, the Maulana writes:
"The Promised Messiah died in 1908, and
soon after his death opposition to him began to mellow down, his own
verbal assurances in 1908 in big respectable gatherings in Lahore
immediately before his death going a long way to remove the
misconception spread by the Maulvis. Yet only six years had elapsed,
when his own son, Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, misled into a wrong belief by
some youthful members of the community, began to promulgate the
doctrine that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was actually a prophet, that he was
in fact the Ahmad
spoken of in Jesus' prophecy referred to in the Holy Quran in 61:6,
and that all those Muslims who had not entered into his
bai`at formally
wherever they might be living in the world were
kafirs, outside the
pale of Islam, even though they may not have heard the name of the
Promised Messiah, and that the confession of the Unity of God and of
the apostleship of the Prophet Muhammad did no more serve the purpose
of bringing non-Muslims into the circle of Islam which it had served
for the last thirteen hundred years." (pp. 9,10)
Near the close of the booklet, he sums up:
"The basis of the religion taught by the
Holy Prophet Muhammad is the simple formula of faith
La ilaha illa-Allah, Muhammad-ur
rasul-ullah, i.e. there is no god but Allah
and Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah. When a non-Muslim accepts
Islam, he has to confess his faith in the above formula. This formula
is, therefore, the basis of the religion of Islam, the foundation on
which the superstructure of Islam is erected, and for the last
thirteen hundred years it has served that purpose. But according to
Mirza Mahmud Ahmad no one can now enter Islam who simply professes
his faith in that formula; a new prophet has arisen and faith in him
only can make a man enter into the circle of Islam. Even those old
Muslims who professed the formula of faith have been turned, bag and
baggage, out of the circle of Islam. . . . We are told by Mirza
Mahmud Ahmad that just as after the appearance of the Holy Prophet
Muhammad faith in Jesus and the earlier apostles did not avail, so
now after the appearance of a prophet, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, faith in
Muhammad and the earlier prophets does not avail."(pp. 150,
151)
Confirmation
by Mirza Mahmud Ahmad.
Mirza Mahmud Ahmad wrote a book in reply to the
Maulana's tract quoted above, in which he confirmed that these indeed
were the beliefs he held and preached. This reply was first published
in Urdu under the title A'inah-i
Sadaqat, and then translated into English and
published in 1924 as The Truth about the
Split. We quote below from the third edition
(published 1965) of the English book. Referring to the Maulana's
statement quoted above, about the changes in his (Mirza Mahmud
Ahmad's) beliefs, he declares:
"These changes, according to Maulvi
Muhammad Ali, relate to three matters: (1) that I propagated the
belief that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was actually a
Nabi; (2) the
belief that he was `the Ahmad' spoken of in the prophecy of Jesus
referred to in the Holy Quran in 61:6; and (3) the belief that
all those so-called Muslims who have not entered into his
Bai`at formally,
wherever they may be, are
Kafirs and outside the
pale of Islam, even though they may not have heard the name of the
Promised Messiah.
"That these beliefs have my full concurrence, I readily admit. What I
deny is the statement that I have been entertaining these views since
1914 or only three or four years before." (pp. 55, 56)
In the same book, Mirza Mahmud Ahmad summarises an
earlier article of his, published in April 1911, which had sparked
off the doctrinal differences that led to the Split. He explains:
"Regarding the main subject of my
article, I wrote that as we believed the Promised Messiah to be one
of the prophets of God, we could not possibly regard his deniers as
Muslims." (pp. 137, 138)
And he writes that he had drawn the following
conclusion in the article:
". . . not only are those deemed to be
Kafirs who openly
style the Promised Messiah as
Kafir, and those who,
although they do not style him thus, decline still to accept his
claim, but even those who, in their hearts, believe the Promised
Messiah to be true, and do not even deny him with their tongues, but
hesitate to enter into his
Bai`at, have here been
adjudged to be
Kafirs." (pp. 139,
140)
In his book Anwar-i
Khilafat, published in 1916, Mirza Mahmud
Ahmad wrote:
"It is our duty that we must not consider
non-Ahmadis as Muslims, and we must not pray following them, because
we believe that they are denying a prophet of Almighty God." (p.
90)
Funeral
prayers for other Muslims prohibited.
As the Islamic funeral prayers can only be held for a
Muslim deceased, Mirza Mahmud Ahmad forbade his followers from
holding such prayers for anyone who did not belong to their movement.
He wrote:
"Now another question remains, that is,
as non-Ahmadis are deniers of the Promised Messiah, this is why
funeral prayers for them must not be offered, but if a young child of
a non-Ahmadi dies, why should not his funeral prayers be offered? He
did not call the Promised Messiah as
kafir. I ask those who
raise this question, that if this argument is correct, then why are
not funeral prayers offered for the children of Hindus and
Christians, and how many people say their funeral prayers? The fact
is that, according to the
Shari`ah, the religion
of the child is the same as the religion of the parents. So a
non-Ahmadi's child is also a non-Ahmadi, and his funeral prayers must
not be said. . . .
"This leaves the question that if a man who believes Hazrat Mirza
sahib to be true but has not yet taken the
bai`at, or is still
thinking about Ahmadiyyat, and he dies in this condition, it is
possible that God may not punish him. But the decisions of the
Shari`ah are based on
what is outwardly visible. So we must do the same thing about him,
and not offer funeral prayers for him."
(Anwar-i Khilafat, pp.
91-93)
According to this statement, all those Muslims who
are not Mirza Mahmud Ahmad's followers belong to the same category as
Hindus or Christians.
Another
statement by M. Muhammad Ali.
Near the end of his life, Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote
an Urdu booklet in 1949, addressed to "every Qadiani and every other
Muslim". He begins it with a summarised account of the split, as
follows:
"In 1914 we separated from Qadian and
laid the foundation in Lahore of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha`at Islam.
The only reason for this was that we did not consider to be correct
the belief of the present Qadiani Khalifa that all non-Ahmadi Muslims
are kafir and outside
the fold of Islam. This belief was opposed to the clear teachings and
the practice of the Founder of the Movement himself, as well as
against the plain teachings of the Quran and Hadith.
"In the last days of the illness of Maulana Nur-ud-Din, this issue
had become such a subject of division in the Jama`at that Mirza
Mahmud Ahmad announced to a separate meeting, which he convened
during the annual gathering of December 1913, that even if swords
were placed on both sides of his neck, he would not desist from
calling non-Ahmadis as
kafir. When this news
reached Maulana Nur-ud-Din . . . he instructed me to write an article
on the issue of Kufr and
Islam, and he told me its basic principle
which was that our classical scholars held that if there are
ninety-nine reasons for
kufr in a man, and one
reason for Islam, he still would not be called a
kafir but a
Muslim.
"On another occasion, he said in a gathering, in the presence of
Mirza Mahmud Ahmad:
'There are many people who do not understand this
question of kufr and
Islam, even our Mian [i.e. Mirza Mahmud Ahmad] has not understood
it.'
"I then wrote the article and read it to Maulana Nur-ud-Din, and
later on it was published.
"After Maulana Nur-ud-Din's death, I tried to get the Mian sahib to
come to an agreement, so that a split in the Jama`at could be
avoided. But Mian sahib did not agree to any of my proposals. One
proposal was that a meeting of the learned men of the Jama`at should
be convened and each side should present its case before them. Then
whichever side was adjudged to be right by the majority, its view
should become the belief of the Jama`at, so that it could stay
united. But Mian sahib was insistent that, although we could hold our
belief in private that all those who profess the
Kalima are Muslims, we
would not be allowed to express it. This was impossible for us. So we
refused to accept him as Khalifa and to take his
bai`at. We decided to
continue the work of the propagation of Islam, even if it meant
leaving Qadian. Even then we did not make a separate Jama`at, and
after the split I stayed in Qadian for more than a month in an effort
to see if we could work together. But, at last, seeing the situation
deteriorate even further, I came to Lahore from Qadian around 20
April 1914."
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