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An example of how false propaganda is being carried on against the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement is the statement published very widely by M. Zafar ‘Ali in his paper, the Zamindar, bearing the heading, "An open letter to the King of England", in which he states that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad accused Mary of adultery and called Christ a bastard. When he was challenged to produce a single quotation in support of this statement, he remained silent, though he continued to repeat the false allegation. It is clear on the face of it that a Muslim who believed in the Holy Quran could not make such a wild statement as that attributed to the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, but the public is being fed on these lies by the sworn enemies of the movement. Far from accusing Mary of adultery and calling Jesus a bastard, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad again and again speaks of the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ. The following three quotations will suffice for this purpose: "The ground on which this is based is this [Jesus Christ’s] creation without the agency of a human father, and the detail of this is that a certain section of the Jews, i.e., the Sadducees, were deniers of the Resurrection, so God informed them through some of His prophets that a son from among their community would be born without a father, and this would be a sign of the truth of Resurrection." (Hamamat al-Bushra, p. 90) "The [Arya Samajist] lecturer also objected to Mary bearing a child by the Holy Spirit and to Jesus being born from Mary alone. The reply is that this was done by the same God who, according to the Arya Samaj teachings, creates millions of people in the beginning of every new creation, just as vegetables grow out of the earth. If, according to the Vedic teachings, God has created the world millions of times, nay times without number, in this manner, and there was no need that men and women should unite together in order that a child should be born, where is the harm if Jesus Christ was born similarly?" (Chashma Ma’rifa, p. 217) The above quotations should be sufficient to convince even the greatest enemy of the movement that its founder sincerely believed that Jesus Christ was born of Mary without her coming into union with a male. Ahmad not only states his own belief on this matter, but he replies to the objections of the Arya Samaj, and lays stress on the point that Jesus Christ was born without a human father. How could he then accuse Mary of adultery when he states again and again that she had not even a lawful union with a man before the birth of Jesus Christ? In the face of these clear statements, to say that he regarded Mary as having committed adultery or that he called Jesus Christ a bastard is a bare-faced lie, yet it is stuff such as this that the public is expected to take, and actually takes, for Gospel truth.
‘Ulama abuse the Promised Messiah Another charge against Ahmad is that, in his dealings with the orthodox ‘ulama, he was very severe. As a matter of fact, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, in this case also, paid back the opposing ‘ulama in their own coin. No sooner had he announced that Jesus Christ was dead and that he himself was the Messiah who was to appear among the Muslims than they denounced him in the most scurrilous terms and applied to him every hateful epithet which they could think of. The following are only a few examples taken from the pages of Isha’at al-Sunna, a periodical issued by Maulvi Muhammad Husain of Batala, which had become the mouthpiece of the ‘ulama: The literature produced against Ahmad teemed with such scurrilous epithets, and even worse than these; no abusive word could be thought of which was not applied to him merely because he claimed to be the Promised Messiah. In addition to this, fatwas were issued against the founder and the members of the Ahmadiyya movement, declaring them to be too polluted to set foot in a mosque, declaring even their dead bodies to be unfit for a Muslim graveyard, and pronouncing their marriages to be illegal and their property to be lawful spoil for others, so that it was no sin to take it away by any means.
‘Ulama as described in Hadith It was ‘ulama of this type whom the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement sometimes dealt with severely, and, if he occasionally made a retort in kind and gave a bad name to such irresponsible people who had lost all sense of decency, he could not be blamed according to any moral code. Thus he writes in one of his latest books: Elsewhere, explaining his attitude, he says: It cannot be denied that a certain class of ‘ulama is spoken of in very strong words in Hadith itself. Thus, in one hadith, the ‘ulama of the latter days are described as "the worst of all under the canopy of heaven", and it is added: "From among them would the tribulation come forth and into them would it turn back." (Baihaqi) According to another hadith, the Holy Prophet is reported to have said: "There will come upon my umma a time of great trial, and the people will have recourse to their ‘ulama, and lo! they will find them to be apes and swine." (Kanz al-‘Ummal, vol. vii, p. 190)
‘Ulama’s disservice to Islam There is almost a consensus of opinion that what was stated about the evil condition of ‘ulama had come true in the present age. Writing shortly prior to the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan wrote in his book, Kashf al-Litham, to this effect, admitting clearly that this condition of the ‘ulama could be plainly witnessed at the present time. It is at least certain that the debasement of the ‘ulama and the advent of the Messiah are described as contemporaneous events. Equally certain is it that the ‘ulama in this age have done the greatest disservice to Islam by wrangling among themselves and wasting all national energy in internal dissensions and not caring in the least for the sufferings of Islam itself. They have entirely neglected their prime duty of upholding the cause of Islam as against the opposing forces and have brought further discredit on it by their narrow-mindedness in fighting among themselves on the most trivial points, thus making themselves and Islam itself, whose champions they are supposed to be, the laughing-stock of the world.* If these people, when reminded of their duty, turned against the man who was commissioned to lead Islam to triumph and heaped all sorts of abusive epithets upon him, thus hampering the great work which he was to accomplish, he was justified in calling them unworthy sons of Islam, and, in a spiritual sense, the illegitimate offspring of their great ancestor. [*Author’s footnote: A very severe contest has been raging in the Muslim world over the accent of the "Amen" recited after the Fatiha in prayers, the majority holding that it should be pronounced in a low voice, and a small minority, the Wahabis, holding that it should be pronounced loudly. How often has the sacred and serene atmosphere of a congregational prayer been disturbed by the taking-up of cudgels to belabour an unfortunate member of the congregation who happened to pronounce the Amen aloud! Cases have gone right up to High Courts of Judicature to determine the right of one section to say their prayers in certain mosques which were built by Muslims of another persuasion. Even this becomes insignificant when one finds that a great struggle is carried on over the pronouncement of the letter dzad, which some read as dad and others as zad, the real pronunciation lying somewhere midway between the two, and fatwas of kufr have been given against one another on a matter of which a man possessing a grain of common sense would not take notice.] |
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