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.
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