By Jonathan M.A. Ghaffar | March 5, 2010
Last updated by Ahmadiyya Times | March 8, 2010
There is a Hadith, a saying of the Holy Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (Peace & Blessings be upon him) that states: "God will institute the Rightly-Guided Khilafat [successor-ship to a prophet] after the time of Holy Prophet Muhammad, which will last 30 years [it did], then there will be monarchial dictatorship and despotism for as long as Allah wills [there was]. Then, when the Imam Mahdi comes [Imam Mahdi means a guided spiritual leader, not a military leader; and who is guiding him? Allah, of course], Allah will re-institute the Divinely-Guided Khilafat on the precept of prophet-hood, which will remain until the Day of Judgment."
Allah promises to “seize by the life artery” anyone claiming they speak a word in the name of God when, in fact, they do not -- yet Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, claimed to be a recipient of divine revelation for nearly 30 years and he was never assassinated, never “seized by his life artery,” even though he openly called on his opponents to try and kill him, and if they succeeded in doing so, it would prove him false.
Instead, he lived a long and full life and died of natural causes resulting from a stomach condition called dysentery, which was one of the three leading causes of death during the 19th-20th centuries in the subcontinent. When Prophet Muhammad got sick in his final days, he too died of that ailment. Medically speaking, when someone gets sick and dies from their illness, it's called "natural causes" and no one attributes their death to divine punishment.
What is the only Muslim community whose founder claimed to be the Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi and that has a successor-ship of Khalifas, all proclaiming they were made Khalifas by Allah -- none ever being assassinated -- now lasting over 100 years? Only Ahmadiyyat.
Would Allah allow a false Khilafat to continue to exist for over a century? Look up the survival rates of past claimants to being the Imam Mahdi or a Khalifa of God? Rashad Khalifa is the latest -- he claimed he was raised along with Prophet Abraham and the Holy Prophet Muhammad for the reformation of mankind. (Visit their website www.submission.org and read for yourself.) Rashad Khalifa expounds on this by saying he manifests in his person the awaited coming of the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Messiah and the Imam Mahdi for the Muslims because none of these persons is actually coming.
Coincidently, Rashad Khalifa also said the last two verses of chapter 9 (128 & 129) were false and were not part of the revelation of the Quran, and that he fixed the problem by removing them his “official” translation. One wonders how this could be true if 15:10 is true: “Verily, We Ourself have sent down this Exhortation, and most surely We will be its Guardian.” So one is left with believing in what Allah says in chapter 15 about protecting the Quran, and what Rashad Khalifa says about verse 128 and 129 of chapter 9 being falsely inserted into the Quran. But since Rashad Khalifa was assassinated in Tucson, AZ in 1990, I think it’s safe to say that God has given His judgment on that issue.
Some believe even General Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan was setting himself up to be pronounced as Khaliftul Muslemeen [Khalifa of the Muslims] when he started instituting the so-called Shariah laws all over Pakistan and made constitutional changes to make lives miserable for those whom he regarded as non-Muslim minorities. He had the support of most of the mullahs of Pakistan and even the Muslim World. Ever wonder what became of him? He also met one of the most violent ends imaginable when his plane exploded in mid-air. All that could be found to identify him were his false teeth.
So the question becomes: is not God consistent with previous claimants to prophet-hood or khalifa-ship in regards to whether they were really from God? Why make an exception for Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and let him live to a ripe old age, and allowing him to proclaim himself to be the Imam Mahdi and Promised Messiah with no divine rebuke? Because Allah does not make exceptions, that's why; otherwise, we could have no faith in the promise of God.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed repeatedly in many of his writings and to all of his enemies that he was divinely-appointed by God as the Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi, and that if he were a liar, a “dajjal” as his opponents so vocally charged, then, Allah would not allow him to keep on living, claiming he was from God if he were not. Ahmad proclaimed that if he were false, then God would cause his end to be swift and disgraceful and this would be a clear Sign that he was a false claimant. But look what happened: it was his opponents who suffered disgrace, and even murder at the hands of others, not Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. So who was Allah protecting and why?
And why isn't Allah protecting the Muslim world today against the violence and occupation of the Western Christian powers? Could it be because the Muslims believe Jesus Christ (as) is alive bodily in the second heaven and is coming down to kill all the Christians who don’t accept Islam (when he's not breaking all their crosses personally, of course) in order to save the Muslims?
Allah tells us that He lets the disobedient wander blindly in their transgression. And look at how the Muslims of the world transgress; against God, against His commandments and against His creation in the form of terrorism and suicide bombings and the like.
And where is the knowledge and spiritual wisdom in the Muslim world? If we look at translations of the Holy Quran for examples we are left in a desert of ignorance and superstition. Why is it that no Quran translations except the Ahmadiyya translations first explained what Alif Lam Meem and other abbreviations mean at the beginnings of a quarter of the surahs? Virtually all translations except the Ahmadi's say "These are a mystery and only Allah knows what they mean." And those non-Ahmadi translations that now give some explanation along our lines can be shown to have been directly influenced by our translations.
Then just look at explanation of Surah Fatiha. All Muslim scholars say this is the most important chapter of the Quran, yet virtually all Qurans have no or very little explanation for the meanings of the Arabic in this surah. One translation just had about a paragraph that basically said this was a "prayer' to God that was "answered" by the revelation of the Quran. While this is true, it doesn't tell you anything about what the surah actually means.
But look at the writings of the Promised Messiah on surah Fatiha -- it's been collected in a book almost 400 pages long. Then there's the detailed Quran commentary by the Promised Messiah (8-vol.), and the Urdu and English commentary Qurans. In total there are thousands and thousands of pages of explanation of the Quran, the Sunnah and the Hadith. And of course, there are the 80+ books of the Promised Messiah.
If all you do is look at the few books he wrote in Arabic (one being the revealed sermon) you can easily prove he's false by just finding one mistake in the Arabic -- just one -- and if you think all the anti-Ahmadi Arabs out there who are scholars of Arabic haven't been trying to do just that for the last 110 years, then you haven't looked. In fact, many a sincere, God-fearing and open-hearted Arab has converted to Ahmadiyyat because of the Promised Messiah's books -- and his Qaseeda in praise of the Holy Prophet -- in Arabic.
The challenges by the Promised Messiah to his opponents on how to prove him false are legendary and numerous; the "find one mistake in my Arabic" -- when he never knew Arabic until Allah taught him 40,000 root words of Arabic in one night -- being just one example.
Quranic verses like:
16:3 'He [Allah] sends down the angels with revelation by His command on whomsoever of His servants He pleases saying, ‘Warn people that there is no God but I, so take Me alone for your Protector.’
11:18 - Can he [Prophet Muhammad], then, who possesses a clear proof from his Lord, and to testify to whose truth a witness from Him shall follow him [who is this? scholars say it is Imam Mahdi], and who was preceded by the Book of Moses, a guide and a mercy, be an impostor? Those who consider these matters believe therein, and whoever of the opposing parties disbelieves in it, Fire shall be his promised place. So be not thou in doubt about it. Surely, it is the truth from thy Lord; but most men do not believe.
7:36 - O children of Adam! if Messengers come to you from among yourselves, rehearsing My Signs unto you, then whoso shall fear God and do good deeds, on them shall come no fear nor shall they grieve.
Now, considering that the Holy Prophet himself received and recited this verse and never once said it was not true because he was the last prophet in sequence of time, and since it is in the future tense of "If" as in sometime in the future it may happen, and if it does, Muslims must pay heed to these messengers.
Then there are the numerous -- dozens upon dozens -- of references where Allah says He Guides whomsoever He pleases. And to say that Allah no longer speaks to devout Muslims who have submitted themselves to Him in emulation of the life and teachings of the Holy Prophet (saw) is to say that Islam is a dead religion, where it profits a Muslim nothing to be obedient to God and serve Him and His creation.
And why then was surah Ikhlaus revealed in response to the derision of the Arabs, who said Prophet Muhammad had no male progeny to carry on his line? Don't Muslims know that surah Ikhlaus says very clearly that the followers of Prophet Muhammad would be his spiritual children and the Meccans would be issue-less. Are there any idol worshipers in Arabia? Are there followers of Prophet Muhammad all over the globe?
Have not the recognized spiritual "saints" -- the Mujaddids of each century -- been blessed with divine guidance from Allah? Were not every one of these now-recognized "saints" and scholars like Rumi, Ghazzali, Rushdie, Hanbal, Hanafi, etc. all denounced as heretics and/or kafirs by the ulema of their time? Yes, every one of them. But now we know different.
As so too will the Muslim ummah and ulema come to the same conclusion about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in about 200 more years -- when by that time the Muslim world will have gotten it's worldly and spiritual backside kicked into a bloody pulp by the powers-that-be -- all except for one community of Muslims: the Ahmadiyya Jama’at. They alone will be left standing when all else in the Islamic world has crumbled and been reduced to dust.
Ahmadiyyat is Noah's Ark. All those who are wise enough to get on the boat will be saved from the ongoing deluge of wrath and punishment by Allah. Everyone else -- especially the opponents of Ahmadiyyat -- will be drowned.
Jonathan M.A. Ghaffar serves as the local Interfaith Outreach Secretary for the Los Angeles East Chapter of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. He is a professional essay editor, proofreader, and graphic artist; and he writes on many subjects including comparative religions and Historical Jesus.
This author of this article writes on the subject "historical Jesus".
ReplyDeleteThe persons using that contra-historical oxymoron (demonstrated by the eminent late Oxford historian, James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue) exposes dependancy upon 4th-century, gentile, Hellenist sources.
While scholars debate the provenance of the original accounts upon which the earliest extant (4th century, even fragments are post-135 C.E.), Roman gentile, Hellenist-redacted versions were based, there is not one fragment, not even one letter of the NT that derives DIRECTLY from the 1st-century Pharisee Jews who followed the Pharisee Ribi Yehoshua.
Historians like Parkes, et al., have demonstrated incontestably that 4th-century Roman Christianity was the 180° polar antithesis of 1st-century Judaism of ALL Pharisee Ribis. The earliest (post-135 C.E.) true Christians were viciously antinomian (ANTI-Torah), claiming to supersede and displace Torah, Judaism and ("spiritual) Israel and Jews. In soberest terms, ORIGINAL Christianity was anti-Torah from the start while DSS (viz., 4Q MMT) and ALL other Judaic documentation PROVE that ALL 1st-century Pharisees were PRO-Torah.
There is a mountain of historical Judaic information Christians have refused to deal with, at: www.netzarim.co.il (see, especially, their History Museum pages beginning with "30-99 C.E.").
Original Christianity = ANTI-Torah. Ribi Yehoshua and his Netzarim, like all other Pharisees, were PRO-Torah. Intractable contradiction.
Building a Roman image from Hellenist hearsay accounts, decades after the death of the 1st-century Pharisee Ribi, and after a forcible ouster, by Hellenist Roman gentiles, of his original Jewish followers (135 C.E., documented by Eusebius), based on writings of a Hellenist Jew excised as an apostate by the original Jewish followers (documented by Eusebius) is circular reasoning through gentile-Roman Hellenist lenses.
What the historical Pharisee Ribi taught is found not in the hearsay accounts of post-135 C.E. Hellenist Romans but, rather, in the Judaic descriptions of Pharisees and Pharisee Ribis of the period... in Dead Sea Scroll 4Q MMT (see Prof. Elisha Qimron), inter alia.
To all Christians: The question is, now that you've been informed, will you follow the authentic historical Pharisee Ribi? Or continue following the post-135 C.E. Roman-redacted antithesis—an idol?