By Waseem A. Sayed, Ph.D.
Chino Hills, California - USA
I had the privilege of working at the Ahmadiyya Muslim booth at the Annual Arab American Day Festival this year and the experience left an indelible impress on my mind.
This is the fourth, or perhaps the fifth year of Ahmadiyya Muslim participation at the Arab-American Day Festival in Orange County, California, but it was the first time for me. I had heard others talk about it with great fervor and I wanted very much to see it for myself. As the day approached, however, I was assigned another task and it looked as if I would miss another year.
On the last day, however, it all worked out fine. I made it to the Festival and I was there alone during the morning session. So the experience was perhaps even more intense than it may otherwise have been. We had our Muslim Television Ahmadiyya - Al-Arabia on blast and there was a lot going on. What I saw and experienced made it clear to me that participation in the Arab American Day Fair is essential to understand the Arab-Muslim and Arab-Christian divide.
Due to the follies of few extremists - who have the audacity to call themselves Muslims, Islam has become a fair game for everyone's attacks, in hopes to possibly gain converts from among the ignorant Muslims.
The principle reason for this comment is the immense effort that I saw the Christians mount on attacking Islam at the Festival. The sheer numbers of their people, the encampment they had built at the front entrance and across the road on the lot of a Church and the army of people from all walks of life dedicatedly moving through the fair at all times was a thing worthy of being seen and recorded.
Each Christian soldier was armed with a cart on wheels with an enormous amount of literature, CD’s, pamphlets and books. Again and again I would notice that on our booth tables, in between our own books, there would magically appear these small cartoon pamphlets containing mostly very harsh and vile attacks on Islam, the Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Then after I would collect all those and separate them from our own materials, and turn around to attend to a visitor, a few minutes later I would find CD’s strewn about on top of our books, again from the numerous walking around Christian evangelists.
Soon, a group of three or four of them came to hand me a trillion dollar bank note and another of a billion dollars and so on…again more Christian literature telling me that the message of Christianity was more valuable than any sum of money.
Soon, another member of our Ahmadiyya Muslim Community had joined in our efforts. No sooner had he arrived than he was accosted by a band of Christian evangelists armed with a movie camera and very loud. They fired off a volley of questions and my comrade replied and ended by asking for an address where he could mail them the more complete literature they needed, ‘1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW,’ came the reply. My partner’s response was met with deafening silence, ‘if we start by lying,’ My friend said calmly, ‘we will surely not go far.’ They left soon thereafter.
When, I say there were people of all sorts, I mean they had ordinary uneducated people, behaving in very vulgar ways, and attacking in ways that were menacing and crude, even provocative at times. Then there were some very sophisticated, well dressed, amicable people whose purpose was the same, but whose approach was reasonable and they listened as well as spoke.
I left the Festival at around 4 pm that day. The next day, I learnt from my friend that the gang leader who had behaved badly with him and whom he had shamed by telling them that they should forsake lying, had come back to apologize for their earlier behavior and they in fact purchased a copy of the Holy Quran for studying..
The second piece of news was shocking for me indeed. I was informed by my partner at the booth that the security guards of the Festival had come to visit them after I had left to tell them that the previous night, some non-Ahmadi Muslims had broken into our booth and taken a Holy Quran and, naoozobillah [God forbid], had trashed the Holy Book.
The best that can be said for these misguided Muslims is that they probably thought that they were destroying a book that was different from the Holy Quran. But the very act of taking anyone’s Holy Book and trashing it runs totally counter to what the Holy Quran teaches. But such is the state of affairs and level of knowledge and understanding of the common Muslim.
So what are we to conclude? The only conclusion is that we, the Ahmadiyya Muslims, have a lot of work ahead of us. We have to tell the Muslims what Islam-Ahmadiyya is all about. A large portion of the Muslim world still needs to understand the answer to the following question:
What is the difference between Ahmadi Muslims and other Muslims?
And it is our duty to tell them the answer to this question and keep on telling them till they understand.
Ahmadi Muslims follow the same Holy Scriptures and teachings as other Muslims. The key difference is that Ahmadi Muslims believe that the Promised Messiah (also referred to as the Mahdi in some texts) of the latter days has arrived and he established the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in 1889. It is a revivalist movement that has no new religious laws or teachings as it seeks to rejuvenate the true Islam as taught by the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Other Muslims are still waiting for a reformer to come.
As with all other Muslims, Ahmadi Muslims believe in the ‘Five Pillars of Islam’, and the ‘Six Articles of Faith’. They follow the same Holy Scripture (The Holy Qur’an), and accept that Islam is the final and perfect religion for mankind. They also believe in Prophet Muhammad as Khataman Nabiyyeen (the ‘Seal of the Prophets’) as he was the one who was the best model for mankind who brought God’s final and perfect message for mankind.
Ahmadi Muslims also follow the Islamic sources of guidance and jurisprudence– which is sourced from three main authorities:
1. The Holy Qur’an;
2. The Sunnah (practice of the Holy Prophet Muhammad; and
3. The Hadith (sayings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad as given in the authentic books of Hadith such as Sahih Al Bukhari, Sahih Al Muslim, Sunan Abu Daud, Tirmidhi, Ibne Maja and Nisai.
Ahmadi Muslims also have regard for the interpretation of Islamic Laws (shariah) provided by the classical Islamic scholars. They generally follow the Hanafi school of thought, but all such matters are considered in light of the guidance provided by the Promised Messiah.
Despite this abundance of guidance, the Muslims, like the followers of all religions before them, were destined to drift away from the true teachings of Islam. This decay was to be followed by the revival of Islam through the messiah of the latter days as prophesied by the Holy Prophet. So whilst all Muslims expect a messiah to appear, it is only the question of the identity and acceptance of the messiah that distinguishes Ahmadi Muslims from all other Muslims.
In some ahadith the messiah is referred to as ‘Jesus son of Mary’ and in others he is referred to as ‘Al-Mahdi’.
It is interesting to note that there are also similar such prophecies in other religions that tell of a messiah who was to appear in the ‘latter days’; for example, Christians are awaiting the second advent of Jesus Christ.
Ahmadi Muslims believe that the messiah who was promised has come and that he was a single person who fulfilled all the prophecies relating to such a messiah not just in Islam but also in all religions. This was to be a unifying factor for all humanity and a means of uniting people under Islam, as it is the perfect religion for man.
Ahmadi Muslims believe that the Promised Messiah was Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who was born in Qadian, India and under Divine guidance he established the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in 1889. The Community seeks to revive the same spirit and understanding of Islam that existed at the time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad.
Some other Muslims on the other hand believe that the Promised Messiah has not yet arrived and that when he does he will be the very same Jesus Son of Mary who was sent to the Jews over 2000 years earlier as the Messiah. They believe that he ascended bodily to heaven and that he will return to earth bodily as a sign signifying his second advent. They further believe that he will slaughter all the pigs on earth and break all the crosses. According to them he will also force everyone to accept Islam.
Ahmadi Muslims believe that such prophecies are metaphorical in nature. So, for example, the Messiah was not to force people to accept Islam, but rather the force of his arguments, reasoning and spiritual insight would demonstrate the truth of Islam and attract people to Islam.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is now established globally with branches in some 193 countries and its membership is in the tens of millions. It is a peace loving community that believes in and acts upon its principle of ‘Love for All, Hatred for None’, a principle that reflects the essence of Islam, the belief in the Unity, absolute One-ness of God. He it is Who has created all of us, so if our love for God is true, we have to be the sincere embodiments of: Love for All – Hatred for None!
All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds.
Dr. Waseem A. Sayed, a member of the AMC-USA Executive Body, is a regular contributer of Ahmadiyya Times.
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