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Khilafat in the Ahmadiyya Movement:
Brief Review
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- For the administration and financial management of the Movement
after him, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad created an Anjuman or association,
which was called the Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, and decreed this body
as his "successor".
- He designated the Anjuman to be the supreme governing body of the
Movement after his death, and assigned to it the decision-making authority
which he himself possessed during his life.
- The Promised Messiah appointed fourteen men to the executive body
of the Anjuman, and gave the instruction that its decisions, made
by majority opinion, would be final and binding.
- The Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya held this position and functioned in
this way during the period of leadership of Maulana Nur-ud-Din (from
May 1908 to March 1914), the first Head of the Ahmadiyya Movement
after the Promised Messiah's death.
- However, in 1914 when Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad (son of Hazrat
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 1889-1965) succeeded in his plans to become the
head of the Movement, he immediately proceeded to destroy the system
created by the Promised Messiah and replace it with an autocratic,
personal 'khilafat' giving the 'khalifa' absolute and supreme power
over the movement.
- M. Mahmud Ahmad invented and taught the belief that the khalifa
is appointed by God, and therefore all his acts and pronouncements
possess the seal of Divine authority. He cannot be questioned or
called to account by any human being or by the members of the
Movement, and it is the prime duty of every member to obey the khalifa
totally and absolutely, without question, no matter what he orders
them to do.
- This is the system of khilafat which has prevailed among the Qadianis
since then, and the highest goal and aspiration of their members is
to please and obey the khalifa of the time.
- The Qadianis consider their 'khalifa' as the real and true Head
of the whole of the Muslim Umma and regard it as the duty of
every Muslim in the world to take the pledge (bai`at) of absolute
obedience to their khalifa. According to Qadiani
beliefs, only those people are Muslims who accept their 'khalifa'.
Everyone else is not a Muslim.
- The Qadiani system of rule by a khalifa possessing absolute, autocratic
power is entirely repugnant to the teachings of Islam, and no trace
whatsoever of any such concept is to be found anywhere in the writings
of the Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
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