In the Service of Islam
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THE REFORMER
HAZRAT MIRZA SAHIB'S main and basic position in Islam is that of the Mujaddid of the fourteenth century Hijra. His roles as the Promised Messiah and the Mahdi were supplemental. In his roles as the Mujaddid and the Mahdi, he carried out very important and essential reforms, necessary to take Islam back to the Holy Qur'an and the Holy Prophet. It is necessary to emphasize that the reforms which he carried out were of the harmful offshoots of later growth, because so far as the Holy Qur'an and the Holy Prophet are concerned, theirs was the true and pure Islam. He himself said:
'I have firm faith that our Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was the last of the prophets. And after him, no prophet will come, whether one of the old ones or a new one. And not a dot or a vowelpoint of the Holy Qur'an can be abrogated' (Book Nishan-e-Asmanl, page 28).
'In my view, one step away from that Luminous Book (Qur'an) is disbelief, utter loss, even self-destruction' (Persian couplet by Hazrat Mirza Sahib).
So the reforms which Hazrat Mirza Sahib carried out were:
(a) In accordance with the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith.
(b) The ones necessary to remove objectionable innovations made later, which exposed Islam and the Muslims to fatal attacks by the Christian critics and their imitators in the Arya Samaj.
(c) The ones necessary to make Islam the rational and sublime religion that it is, and that can alone be accepted in this age of reason and knowledge.
Under (b) above, we have already mentioned in Chapter 2 how fatal to Islam and the Muslims was their ill-founded faith that Jesus Christ had been taken alive and with his physical body to heaven, to await there his re-posting to the earth to save Islam and the Muslims when they are in dire peril. And we will, insha-Allah, in the next chapter show from the Holy Qur'an, the Hadith, the Bible, and the opinion of some eminent Muslims, that Jesus Christ died a normal and natural death. So that his second advent prophesied in the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith was to be 'of a leader from amongst the Muslims' (Bukhari and Muslim).
Healing the Sick
Similarly, there were other beliefs among the Muslims that were of no consequence before, but had become vital now, as the Christian missionaries exploited them to prove from the Holy Qur'an the divinity of Jesus and his supremacy over the Holy Prophet of Islam. Those Muslim beliefs were based on a too-literal interpretation of the metaphorical statements made in the Holy Qur'an (3:48) that Jesus Christ cured the ailments of the blind and the leprous and brought the dead to life. Apart from the incorrectness of the too literal and physical interpretation of this verse, which we will show just now, we would like to say at once to the Christian missionaries that even if the verse is taken too literally, it is no credit to Jesus Christ, for even the medical men now cure blindness and leprosy, and they revive the dead. Prophets don't come to serve as doctors. They come to cure spiritual diseases. The Holy Qur'an itself speaks of the deaf and dumb and the blind in several places, but never in the physical sense, and only in the spiritual sense. It speaks of itself as 'a healing for what is in the hearts' (10:57), which all interpret to mean spiritual healing. So why should it be held that when the same terms are used for Jesus Christ they mean the miracles of physical healing? They are no miracles, for ordinary doctors do the same. Even in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, the Rev. T. K. Cheyne has shown that all the stories of the Bible about the healing of the sick have arisen from the spiritual healing of the sick.
Similarly, about the revival of the dead, the physically dead can never come back according to the Holy Qur'an (39:42, 23: 100, etc.).
Now let us take up the 'creation of birds' by Jesus Christ from dust. Before we show that this was also spiritual, let us say again to the Christian missionaries that if it is taken in the literal and physical sense then it reflects no credit on Jesus Christ. He needed at least dust from which to create the birds. An ordinary magician can produce pigeons from his hat, without needing even the dust. Prophets don't come to act as conjurers or to perform magical tricks. Jesus Christ, who is quoted in this verse (3:48), always spoke in metaphors and similes, so much so that the Bible speaks of his disciples complaining about it. Here again he was speaking metaphorically of those whom he found in the dust, or who were humble and submissive, or dust in his hands, being made by him like birds to soar in the heavens, in the spiritual sense. This is the sense in which the Holy Qur'an speaks in another place as follows:
'And there is no animal in the earth, nor a bird that flies on its two wings, but they are communities like yourselves' (6:38).
The need for these reforms arose because, if taken literally, the so-called miracles invested Jesus Christ with divinity. For the Holy Qur'an clearly says that there is no Creator except Allah, so that if Jesus Christ created birds he was at least a partner in godhood. And this the Christian proselytizers exploited to win over Muslims to Christianity. The verses of the Holy Qur'an which make it clear that only Allah creates are:
'And it is Allah Who created for you everything in the earth' (2:29)
'He created everything' (6:103; 25:2)
'All this is the creation of Allah's. Show me what others besides Him have created' (31 :11 )
'Or have they set up with Allah associates who have created a creation like His, so that what is created becomes confused to them?' (13:16)
(The reader should note that Jesus is set up as an associate with God and is alleged to have created birds like Allah's creation.)
'Show me what they (the false gods) created in the earth' (35:40; 46:4)
'Those whom you call upon besides Allah created nothing, but they themselves were created' (16:20).
And so on.
The Christian proselytizers, on the strength of the above verses, exploited the wrong notion of the Muslim Ulema that Jesus Christ created birds physically, to make him a part of God, one of the three, as believed by them. Even the wrong notion that he healed physical ailments they exploited for the same purpose, because the Holy Qur'an says (26:80) that it is Allah Who cures physical ailments, although outwardly the doctors and the medicines created by Him do the work. When Allah does not want to cure, no doctor or medicine can.
So these reforms had assumed importance now, with the Christian onslaught on Islam, to remove the wrong notions which only helped those out to finish Islam and the Muslims.
Judge and Arbiter
Brotherhood of Islam
The Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had said that the Promised Messiah would be an arbiter and a judge, to decide differences and disputes which would be dividing the Muslim brotherhood grievously in his time. And so they were, so much so that the Muslims, worshipping One Allah, following one Prophet (Muhammad) and obeying one book (the Holy Qur'an), were divided into nearly seventy-two sects calling one another kafirs (disbelievers and outside the pale of Islam)! Hazrat Mirza Sahib, quoting the Holy Qur'an and the Holy Prophet, laid down the law that he who recites the Kalima: La ilaha ill-Allah, Muhammad-ur-Rasool Allah is a Muslim, because that Kalima makes even a non-Muslim to be a Muslim. The Holy Prophet had himself said:
'Restrain yourself in the matter of those who recite La ilaha ill-Allah. Do not call them kafirs. For he who calls them kafirs is himself nearer to kufr (disbelief)' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 2, page 129, Hadith No. 3139).
The Holy Qur'an goes to the extent of saying:
'And do not say to one who greets you with the Muslim salutation (Assalamu 'alaikam), You are not a believer' (4:94).
And the Holy Prophet had similarly fixed outward signs to decide who is a Muslim:
'And do not call those who face towards your Qibla (Makka) disbelievers'
'He who prays as we do, and faces the same Qiblah, and eats animals as slaughtered by us, then he is a Muslim, who has the protection of Allah and His Messenger; so do not betray Allah in His protection' (Bukhari, Kitab-us-Salat, Chapter on the excellence of facing Qibla).
It has been alleged against Hazrat Mirza Sahib that he himself called those who did not believe in him kafirs. This is totally wrong. He wrote:
'From the beginning it has been my faith that nobody who rejects my claim (to be Mujaddid, Promised Messiah or Mahdi) becomes a kafir (disbeliever, outside the pale of Islam) or Dajjal' (book Tiryaq-ul-Qulub, page 130).
And this view he confirmed on oath in a court of law (in the case brought against him by Karam Din Jhelumi) and re-confirmed in his book Haqiqat-ul-Wahy (Nishan 118), published in 1907.
But to put an end to the malaise of Takfeer (calling others kafirs), so prevalent among Muslims, he warned that, according to the following admonition of the Holy Prophet, those who indulged in it themselves became kafir:
'He who describes those who recite La ilaha ill-Allah, Muhammad-ur-Kasool Allah as kafirs himself becomes nearer to kufr (disbelief)' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 2' page 129).
'Whoever says to his brother, O kafir!, then one of them does become one'
And it was only by way of retaliation, to put an end to the evil, that he referred to those who called him kafir as having become kafirs themselves, as announced by the Holy Prophet . Otherwise, as he said a few days before his death (15th May 1908)' in reply to Mian (later Sir) Fazle Hussain, Bar-at-Law, 'We certainly do not describe as kafirs those who do not call us kafirs.'
Sunni-Shia Rift
This rift has done incalculable harm to the unity of Muslims, leading as it did to brawls, riots, killings, even wars. To decide the bone of contention whether Hazrat Ali should not immediately have succeeded the Holy Prophet as the Caliph, Hazrat Mirza Sahib quoted the Holy Qur'an and Hadith to show that the selection of Hazrats Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman as Caliphs was no usurpation, as alleged by the Shias, but selection on merits by the then leaders of Muslim thought (Book Sirr-ul-Khirafah).
In any case, hurling abuses (as the Shias do) at these, and other venerable Companions of the Holy Prophet, was an un-Islamic and a reprehensible practice.
Qur'an and Hadith
Apart from the Ahle-Qur'an (the sect of those who follow the Qur'an only and reject Hadith) and Ahle-Hadith or Wahabis (those who go by what the Hadith says, even in interpreting the Qur'an), which are well-defined sects, there are a large number of Muslims not belonging formally to these sects who follow one of these schools of thought or the other. In Hazrat Mirza Sahib's time, controversy raged between these sects. He, therefore, felt the need to pronounce upon it. The Ahle-Qur'an and quite a large number of the so-called intellectuals of the present-day reject the Hadith altogether, because it was collected and reduced to writing about 100-150 years after the death of the Holy Prophet, and a number of spurious, weak and mixed reports have found their place in the books of Hadith. But if you reject the Hadith altogether, then a great deal of Islam disappears. For instance, the Holy Qur'an asks us to say our prayers. But how often and in what manner to say them, and what to say in them, are all taken from the Hadith. Again, the Holy Qur'an requires the payment of Zakat (poor-rate). All its details as to who is liable to pay Zakat and who is not, what form of wealth is liable to this levy and what is not, what are the rates of levy for the various kinds of wealth, etc., are derived from the Hadith.
Apart from such elucidations of the Holy Qur'an, which the Holy Prophet gave by wahy khafi (revelation from Allah which is not for recitation), the Hadith are full of the most valuable and illuminating pearls of wisdom and guidance from the lips of the Holy Prophet, as also thousands of prophecies about future events, which, when fulfilled, put the seal of truth on the Divine origin of those prophecies. To reject them all is the most self-destructive step any Muslim can take. But the fact remains that the reports of Hadith were carried by word of mouth and in memory for nearly 100-150 years, and most of the reports carry what the reporter thought was the meaning of the Holy Prophet, although it is amazing how many of them have proved true verbally too by the later discovery of, for instance, the letter of the Holy Prophet to Maququs, King of Egypt. Yet the element of doubt always exists about reports carried by word of mouth or in memory for 100-150 years. And there are, no doubt, weak or corrupted reports, some of them forged by converts to Islam from Judaism or Christianity after the Muslim conquests.
So, to resolve the controversy about the relative position of the Holy Qur'an and Hadith was difficult. And that is why the Muslims had divided up into two schools of thought, as shown above, and gone to the extremes of rejecting all Hadith, or going by them, and not turning to the Holy Qur'an, on the assumption that the Holy Prophet understood the Holy Qur'an better than us. True, but have we got his interpretation fully and correctly, when, for 100-150 years, all his sayings were carried from mouth to mouth or from memory to memory only?
Hazrat Mirza Sahib laid down the beautiful mean between the two extremes. He said that the Holy Qur'an must come first. It is admittedly the fountainhead of the religion. It is the word of Allah Himself. It is the Book which the Holy Prophet himself followed completely. Besides, there is the Divine guarantee that it would be safeguarded against loss or interpolation:
'Surely We have revealed this Reminder and surely We will be its Guardian' (15:9).
But the Holy Qur'an itself requires us to obey the Holy Prophet too ('Obey Allah and His Messenger,' is repeated again and again) and follow in his ways:
'Say, If you love Allah, follow me and Allah will love you too, and grant you protection from sins' (3:30).
So how do we obey or follow the Holy Prophet? Obey his Sunnah (example set in deeds). And since the practical example (Sunnah) of the Holy Prophet (for instance in the matter of prayers) was preserved by the practice of his followers, who were scrupulous and punctilious in following his sublime example in all its details from generation to generation, the Sunnah comes next to the Holy Qur'an in the matter of dependability. This was a new and a very correct priority laid down by Hazrat Mirza Sahib.
The sayings of the Holy Prophet (Hadith) come next in the order of priority because they were carried by word of mouth and not recorded for 100-150 years. Now, how to decide which of the items of Sunnah or Hadith to depend upon and follow? Hazrat Mirza Sahib again laid down the golden rule. Since the Holy Prophet never said or did anything against the Holy Qur'an, test the Hadith (or alleged Sunnah) with reference to the Holy Qur'an. If it is not in conflict, accept it. If not, leave it to Allah. Maybe later on somebody may prove that even that conflict does not exist. Particularly so far as the prophecies are concerned, only events can be the final proof.
Fiqh
Fiqh is the body of law which grew up when the various Imams (Hanifa, Malik, Shafai, Hanbal and their successors), by the application of reasoning or conjecture, worked out details of the Muslim law not found specifically in the Holy Qur'an or the Hadith, but required to decide specific cases. While those legists are entitled to great respect, it is not correct to follow them blindly, as:
(a) It is possible that their attention may not have been drawn to a particular verse of the Holy Qur'an or to a Hadith which may entitle us to take a different view. For instance, nobody knew the Holy Qur'an or the example of the Holy Prophet better than Hazrat Umar, the second Caliph, about whom the Holy Prophet had said that he would have been a prophet had prophethood continued after him. When Hazrat Umar forbade the fixing of a high mehr (dowry) for women taken in marriage, an old woman corrected him by saying: 'O son of Khattab, Allah gives this right to us and you forbid it.' And then she recited the verse of the Holy Qur'an: 'And if you have given any of these women heaps of gold, don't take anything of it back.' Hazrat Umar was great enough, and God-fearing enough, to admit publicly that he was wrong, and corrected himself, saying: 'The women of Madina have more understanding than Umar.'
(b) Times have changed, and with them the circumstances have also changed, which may require rethinking about the laws made when times and circumstances were different. For instance, in those days when there were no modern means of communication, it was all right to fix long periods of waiting for a married woman about her missing husband before she could be entitled to assume that he was dead and she was free to remarry. With modern means of fast communication, a much smaller period of waiting could justifiably be fixed.
In any case, what happened, unfortunately, was that the Ulema came to give the Fiqh the topmost place of honour and priority in their studies and in their discourses and sermons, instead of the priority being given to the Holy Qur'an, the Sunnah and Hadith in that order. In fact, Islamic theology came to mean Fiqh. It was one of Hazrat Mirza Sahib's basic reforms to put the Holy Qur'an first, the Sunnah next, the Hadith third, and then the Fiqh.
Ijtihad
The Ulema had, in Hazrat Mirza Sahib's time, closed the door of Ijtihad (deductive reasoning from the Holy Qur'an, the Sunnah and the Hadith) on the grounds that the early Muslim scholars understood the Holy Qur'an, the Sunnah and Hadith better than us. While the early scholars of Islam are entitled to great respect, there is always the possibility of honest mistake or oversight, and, as already stated, new times and new circumstances require rethinking in interpreting the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith. When Hazrat Mirza Sahib reopened the door of Ijtihad, there was an uproar against him, although the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had himself opened the door of Ijtihad if no specific authority was available in the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah, on the well-known occasion when he was sending Hazrat Muaz ibn Jabal as the governor of Yaman and on other occasions. Luckily, now, nearly eighty years after Hazrat Mirza Sahib declared that the door of Ijtihad was always open, there is consensus among the enlightened Muslim scholars and thinkers that the door is indeed open. So there is no need for us to discuss the issue further. But the credit for opening the door, closed for centuries, will be given to Ahmadiyyat and its great Founder by the honest historians when the dust of controversy and calumny against the former has settled.
Theory of Abrogation
There was unfortunately common faith among the Muslim Ulema about Nasikh Mansukh in the Holy Qur'an, that is to say that certain verses of the Holy Qur'an canceled or abrogated other verses. The number of such verses, according to some, was as high as five hundred. It was not realized, when there was no criticism of Islam by foreigners, that this was a great slur on the Holy Qur'an. For the hostile critics of the nineteenth century CE referred to the verse of the Holy Qur'an which says:
'And if this Book were from any other than Allah, they would have found in it many a discrepancy' (4:82)
and they argued that the Holy Qur'an is thus not from Allah as it contains so many discrepancies.
It was an historical service of Ahmadiyyat and its Founder to show that there was no discrepancy whatsoever in the Holy Qur'an by reconciling the apparent conflict on which this theory was based. Those who believed in it referred to 2:106, but that verse in the Holy Qur'an refers to the abrogation of the earlier Shari'ats by the Shari'at being given by the Holy Qur'an.
Slavery and Concubinage
The reform made by Ahmadiyyat on these issues has already been discussed in Chapter 8.
Jihad
The reform made by Hazrat Mirza Sahib on this basic principle of Islam has already been discussed in Chapter 6, so it will not be repeated here.
Apostasy
This has already been discussed in Chapter 8. This important reform made by Ahmadiyyat and its Founder has yet to be accepted by the general body of the Ulema. But it is a question of time before it will be, insha-Allah.
The Brotherhood of Man
There is no doubt about this concept taught by Islam 1400 years ago, when national and tribal and even family superiorities were in vogue. But most of the Muslim Ulema of the nineteenth century CE believed only those nations to have received Divine guidance whose prophet or prophets are mentioned in the Holy Qur'an, and therefore the phrase 'The People of the Book' was confined to the Jews and the Christians. This narrow and wrong view overlooked the following verses of the Holy Qur'an:
'And for every nation there was a messenger' (10:47).
'For every people there was a guide' (13:7).
'And there is not a people but a warner has gone among them' (35 :24) .
'Mankind is a single nation. So Allah raised (among all nations) prophets as bearers of good news (to those who believe and do good deeds) and as warners (to those who reject Divine guidance and fall into evil ways), and He revealed with them the Book with truthÉ' (2:213).
'And certainly We sent messengers before thee -of them are those We have mentioned to thee, and of them are those We have not mentioned to theeÉ' (40:78)
In view of all the verses quoted above, it must be held that prophets and revealed books were sent to all nations. The phrase 'People of the Book' may therefore be taken to mean those nations who possess a book which they claim was revealed, however interpolated and corrupt its teachings may have now become. Some element of Divine guidance must have remained in it. So the followers of such books are better than those who have completely lost their books. It was on this interpretation that Hazrat Umar, the second Caliph, determined that the Zoroastrians of Persia (which was conquered in his time) should be treated as 'The People of the Book,' although their prophet or book is not mentioned specifically in the Holy Qur'an.
Ahmadiyyat and its Founder thus widened and perfected the concept of the brotherhood of man to include prophets and Divine books having been sent to all nations. And this was in accordance with the Holy Qur'an, according to the verses quoted above. This reform was important, not only in itself, but also because Islam was now, under the inspiration given by Hazrat Mirza Sahib, to go out to convert the nations of the world.
Propagation of Islam
That is the mission of Ahmadiyyat. It was neglected in recent centuries, although the Holy Qur'an had made it incumbent that there should always be a Jamaat among Muslims who should invite others to Islam (3:103). And Jihad with the Holy Qur'an (25:52), which was made obligatory on the Holy Prophet and his followers, was the principal task entrusted by the Founder to the Ahmadiyya Jamaat. That this has been done, bringing about a revolutionary change in the outlook of the West and of the rest of the world regarding Islam, will be shown in a later chapter.
Islam as purified and refined in Ahmadiyyat (very briefly shown in this chapter and earlier) is the only Islam which can appeal to the enlightened people of the world.
AHMADIYYAT IN THE SERVICE OF ISLAM by N.A. Faruqui Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam, Lahore, Inc. 36911 Walnut Street, Newark California 94560 USA Copyright© by Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam Lahore, Inc. 1983. First published in 1983 by the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam Lahore, Inc. (USA) 36911 Walnut Street Newark, California 94560 USA Library of Congress catalog car number: 83-71698 ISBN 0-913321-00-1 All rights reserved. Cover Design: Details of Wall Mosaics in the Mosque of El Bordeyhy (17th century) From Dover Pictorial Archive Series Arabic Art in Color (Dover 1978). Typeset by Linguatype Limited, Slough, Berks, England.
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