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There are certain questions which we are repeatedly asked by members of the Qadiani/Rabwah Jama‘at, and also by other people, relating to the issues of disagreement between the Qadiani/Rabwah Jama‘at (known as the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam) and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jama‘at (known as Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore).

This page has been created to give short answers to such questions and to refer readers to other links on our website for fuller details. The questions below are quite real and were received at our website by e-mail from time to time. The words of these questions have not been altered, except for correcting typographical and grammatical errors.

1. Why had you accepted the first khalifa if you are against this form of administration?

The form of administration for the Ahmadiyya Movement was laid down by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, by creating a body known as Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya. For details see our article entitled Khilafat in the Ahmadiyya Movement. We accepted that system from the day he put it into operation during his own life. The same system continued to operate under Hazrat Maulana Nur-ud-Din. He was Khalifa working according to the system set up by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. That was why we accepted him.

However, Mirza Mahmud Ahmad in 1914 introduced the system of autocratic rule by a khalifa possessing absolute power, who has to be obeyed blindly regardless of what he orders. This is completely against Islam. That is why we could not accept his khilafat, because there is no sign or trace of such an institution in Islam or in the teachings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Read a more detailed answer.

2. Is it true that the split occurred after the elderly ulama of your section refused to give the pledge to a youth Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad because they felt they were better than him?

Please tell us what you mean by elderly? Maulana Muhammad Ali was 39 years old at the time of the Split. First you should read what opinion the Promised Messiah expressed about Maulana Muhammad Ali and how he appointed him to the highest positions. See our article: Maulana Muhammad Ali in the eyes of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Our objections to Mirza Mahmud Ahmad were about his beliefs. In 1911, three years before the Split, he published an article which he himself later summarised in English as follows:

“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.”

“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.”

For full references and scanned images please see our article: Declaring Muslims as kafir.

For fuller details of the Split read the following chapter from the biography of Maulana Muhammad Ali: 3. Events of the Split in the Movement and migration of Maulana Muhammad Ali to Lahore.

3. If Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was just a Mujaddid, why he had been asked to establish a community, while other mujaddideen were not?

Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was directed by Allah to establish a Jama‘at in the year 1888. This was the time when, even according to the Qadianis, he had only claimed to be a Mujaddid. How can the Qadianis raise this question when according to their own beliefs he was asked to form a community when his claim was only that of a mujaddid.

4. If he was the Promised Messiah whom Muslims are awaiting he should be a prophet because the Messiah was a prophet?

He himself wrote when he claimed to be the Promised Messiah that:

“If the objection be raised here that, as the Messiah (Jesus) was a prophet, his like should also be a prophet, the first answer to this is that our leader and master (the Holy Prophet Muhammad) has not made prophethood a necessary condition for the Messiah to come.” (Tauzih Maram).

For full details see our page: Hadith in which Promised Messiah is called ‘Prophet’.

He also wrote:

“The Holy Quran clearly states that the Holy Prophet Muhammad is the Khatam al-anbiya. But our opponents make Jesus the Khatam al-anbiya, and they say that the mention of the Messiah as prophet of God in Sahih Muslim and elsewhere refers to real prophethood.”
(Kitab al-Bariyya, p. 191, footnote.)

He says that it is his opponents who say that the coming Messiah must be a prophet. This shows that the Qadianis are putting forward the same argument which the opponents of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad put forward, and which he rejected.

5. How can you explain that God let the Qadiani group be more prosperous and in number of members, although all the money and ulama and establishments were with the Lahori group after split?

This is another fabrication spread by the Qadiani leaders. Please use your commonsense. The Movement was established in Qadian. Our elders left Qadian to come to Lahore. So everything remained behind in Qadian! They started from scratch in Lahore.

Mirza Mahmud Ahmad himself, in his book The Truth about the Split, writes about this question of how many members of the Jama‘at sided with each party at the split. He says about the gathering in Qadian where he was declared as khalifa:

“Out of about 2000 people who were present at the time, only about 50 withheld their Bai‘at. All the rest took the pledge.” (page 344)

“They invited the community at large to assemble on 22 March at Lahore … there assembled at Lahore a gathering of 110 men inclusive of local members. Only 42 came from outside Lahore. … This left to them only 100 men. According to the Lahore party the decision of these 100 men was the authoritative decision of the entire Ahmadiyya community, while the decision of the very much more numerous gathering at Qadian was the result of collusion and conspiracy” (pages 357, 358).

So according to Mirza Mahmud Ahmad far more people were with him than with the Lahoris. The Qadianis are therefore now contradicting themselves! Are they correct now or is Mirza Mahmud Ahmad’s earlier account correct?

In answer to the repeatedly-used Qadiani argument that their beliefs are right because they have a much larger membership and following, and much greater worldly resources, than the Lahore Jama‘at, please read a detailed answer here.

6. Why is there a pledge in your community although there isn’t a khalifa?

There is a pledge in our community because Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad directed in his will (Al-Wasiyyat) that after his death there should be some righteous elders who should admit new people into the community by taking from them the pledge in the name of the Promised Messiah. Hazrat Mirza also wrote that any forty Ahmadis could agree on an elder as being a suitable man to take the pledge from new entrants. Our Anjuman has always appointed such elders.

Nowhere has Hazrat Mirza stated that the pledge must be taken on the hand of one particular individual or that existing Ahmadis must repeat their pledge on a so-called khalifa’s hand.

7. Do you believe in the prophecy of Musleh Ma‘ood (Promised Reformer) that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad received concerning the illustrious birth of his son and his subsequent service to Islam?

We certainly believe in all the prophecies revealed by Allah to Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. But the interpretation and fulfilment of those prophecies must be in accordance with the principles and precedents that govern the fulfilment of prophecies from God. Those principles are given in the Holy Quran and Hadith, and can be seen in the Bible as well. Islamic scholars of past times have also explained them, and in particular Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has expounded them extensively and clearly in his writings. Therefore his followers should not have any problems in understanding how a prophecy is fulfilled and how it is not fulfilled.

As to why we do not accept Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad to have been the true Muslih Mau‘ud, we make the following points:

1. The Split in the Ahmadiyya Movement took place in 1914, almost thirty years before Mirza Mahmud Ahmad announced his claim to be Muslih Mau‘ud. Therefore it cannot be said that the leaders of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Anjuman opposed him in 1914 because of his claim of being Muslih Mau‘ud, in the way in which people oppose those who are sent by Allah. Mirza Mahmud Ahmad was fiercely opposed for his beliefs (in particular, his calling of other Muslims as kafirs and as excluded from the fold of Islam), long before he claimed to be Muslih Mau‘ud. Those who are truly appointed by Allah do not face such opposition before their claim; on the contrary, they are widely held in high regard and honour before their claims, as were the Holy Prophet Muhammad or Hazrat Mirza sahib.
2. The evidence and arguments which the leaders of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Anjuman presented since 1914 to show the falsity of the beliefs of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad remain entirely valid even after his claim in 1944 to be Muslih Mau‘ud. Mirza Mahmud Ahmad cannot just say, after thirty years of failing in argument, that his beliefs are right because Allah has told him that he is the Muslih Mau‘ud. A person can only prove the truth of his beliefs by arguments and evidence, and not by claiming that God has appointed him to a status and therefore he must be right in his beliefs. When Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad announced that Jesus had died, he gave arguments and evidence from the Quran and Hadith to prove it, and did not say that his interpretation was right because God had made him Promised Messiah.

   As Mirza Mahmud Ahmad’s beliefs (that the Promised Messiah was a prophet, and those who do not accept him are kafir and excluded from Islam) are wrong, and are contrary to Islam and to the teachings of the Promised Messiah, he cannot possibly be the Muslih Mau‘ud.

3. All Ahmadis believe that the prophecy in Hadith about the coming of Jesus the son of Mary was fulfilled in the person of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, despite the fact that he was neither Jesus nor the son of any woman called Mary. Therefore, when Hazrat Mirza sahib himself prophesies the coming of a ‘son’, then it certainly does not necessarily mean a physical son.

   In his pamphlet Ayk Ghalati Ka Izala Hazrat Mirza sahib has referred to the belief of some Muslims who held (and still hold) that the coming Mahdi would be a physical descendant of the Holy Prophet Muhammad because there are some Hadith reports which say that “he shall be from me”. Hazrat Mirza sahib writes:

   “People who think in physical terms have variously considered this promised one to be a descendant of Hasan, or of Husain, or of Abbas. But the Holy Prophet only meant that, like a descendant, he would be his heir — heir to his name, heir to his nature, heir to his knowledge, and heir to his spirituality — displaying his image within himself from every aspect. … Similarly in the verse ‘We have granted thee al-kausar’ [the Quran, 108:1] there is the promise of a burooz … In this verse also, the necessity for physical progeny is belittled, and a prophecy is given of buroozi offspring. And although God has bestowed upon me the privilege of being an Israelite as well as a Fatimi, having a share of both stocks, I give precedence to the spiritual relationship which is the burooz connection.”

   Therefore the most important condition to be fulfilled by the Muslih Mau‘ud is that he must be a spiritual heir, regardless of whether or not he is a physical descendant. As Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, unfortunately, went contrary to the beliefs of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on certain very basic issues, it means that he is not his spiritual heir and cannot be the Muslih Mau‘ud.
4. As to the “service to Islam” performed by Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, we do not wish to deny any service that he or anyone else may have rendered to Islam. However, the specific service to Islam which the Promised Messiah exhorted his followers to perform, namely, the propagation of Islam and of the Holy Quran, was done most prominently by Maulana Muhammad Ali. For details please see our following page: Maulana Muhammad Ali in the eyes of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

   One important example of his service may be given here. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote in his book Izala Auham in 1891:

   “I wish to prepare a commentary of the Quran which should be sent to them [the Western nations] after it has been rendered into the English language. I cannot refrain from stating clearly that this is my work, and that definitely no one else can do it as I can, or as he can who is an offshoot of mine and thus is included in me.” (page 773)

   Maulana Muhammad Ali performed this great service and published his English translation and commentary of the Holy Quran in 1917. It received, and still receives, great acclaim all over the world for its unique qualities. By rendering this magnificent service, Maulana Muhammad Ali proved himself to be a true branch of the Promised Messiah, about which the Promised Messiah has written that he is “included in me”. It may be noted that the Qadiani Jama‘at under Mirza Mahmud Ahmad was unable to produce any English translation of the Holy Quran for thirty years after Maulana Muhammad Ali’s translation first appeared.