A Response to Maulana Umar Sahib

[This article is the second part of the series on 'Kerala Ahmadis and the New Mujaddid'. The first part was published yesterday, May 14, 2011 and can be accessed here. The series of articles analyses the strategies deployed by the Ahmadiyya leadership to put out the Light of Allah in the form of the new Mujaddid in Mauritius and his disciples in Kerala].   

Maulana Muhammad Umar Sahib is currently the Naib Nazir A’la, Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, Qadian. He is one of the leading scholars of the Indian Ahmadiyya Jamaat and among the first to officially respond to the coming of a Mujaddid in our times. Soon after the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam was formed and legally registered as an organization in Kerala, he wrote an article entitled “Khilafat and Mujaddidiyat” in the December 2010 issue of Sathyadoothan,  the official Ahmadiyya Journal. In spite of his profound learning and remarkable scholarship, the Maulana Sahib has come up with a deeply disturbing argument.  In the editorial abstract of the article, it is written: “The coming of Mujaddidin is irrelevant because the Khilafat system established by the Mahdi Massih is thriving”.(Sathyadoothan, p.13).

As a common Muslim, I cannot help but ask the Maulvi Sahib:

Who is the Mahdi Massih to interfere with the Sunnat of Allah and to abolish Khilafat-e-Muhammadiyya and replace it with Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya? Once, a prayer of the Promised Massih (as) was not answered favourably by Allah the Most High. So the Promised Messiah (as) declared his intention to try intercession. On this Allah told him:  “Who was he to intercede without being granted permission to do so? The Promised Messiah (as) was left trembling upon this.

So, it is impossible to consider that the Mahdi Massih (as) has taught anything against the Sunnat of Allah. The raising of Divine reformers in every age is a permanent Sunnat of Allah- remember, 1, 24, 000 prophets and countless seers and saints preceded the coming of the Holy Prophet of Islam. It is completely unfair to allege that the Massih (as) has ended the chain of Mujaddidin who are the divinely appointed Khulafa of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa) or that he replaced the Mujaddidin with his own man-elected Khulafa till the Day of Judgement.

In the May 2011 Issue of the Sathyadoothan, Maulana Sahib is back with a new formulation of his thesis. The article now is entitled: “Khilafat: A Permanent Divine Institution”. The Maulvi Sahib quotes from Shahad-ul-Qur’an, the book of Hadhrat Ahmad (as) to reinforce his point on Khilafat. Yet, he did not see the following statement in the same book on the significance of Mujaddidin:

“It should be remembered that the perfection of faith does not dispense with the need of safeguarding it…These people do not reflect that the completion of a structure is one thing and its seasonal cleaning is quite another. It should be remembered that Mujaddidin do not add anything to or subtract any thing from the faith. They restore to the hearts that which had been lost. To assert that it is not necessary to believe in Mujaddidin is disobedience of a Divine command. He has directed: ‘Whoever rejects the Khulafa, after they have been sent, is indeed from amongst the sinners’ (24: 56).  [Shahadat-ul-Qur’an, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol.6, pp.339-352]

The Maulvi Sahib is grossly erred in his understanding of what he is talking about. This is evident from his formulation of Mujaddidiyat and Khilafat as separate, temporary and permanent institutions. According to the Maulvi Sahib, Khilafat and Mujaddidiyat are two separate institutions designed to fly the flag of Islam in times of spiritual crisis. He states: “For this purpose, Allah has established two systems: First, a temporary arrangement and secondly, a permanent system is institutionalized. These are, respectively, the emergence of the Mujaddidin or religious revivalists on temporary basis and the Institution of Khilafat, which is a permanent institution”.

So, Mujaddidiyat is a temporary institution which happened to last 1400 long years! And Khilafat is the permanent institution that survived for a period of 30 years after the death of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa). This “permanent” institution vanished into thin air for a mere 1400 years only to make an appearance after the arrival of the Mahdi-Massih (as). How can a permanent institution be non-existing? The searing irony can only be lost on those don’t want to see it. 

What was the fate of Islam in between? According to the Maulana, Islam could not produce noble souls who could be given the promise of Khilafat for a period of 1400 years till the departure of Mahdi Massih (as)! It really needs the extraordinary learning of a great scholar like him to wish away the glaring contradictions of his thesis! While the Maulvi Sahib has said that Mujaddidiyyat is a temporary institution, the Promised Massih (as) commenting on a verse of the Holy Qur’an said the very opposite:

"Another point is that the letter ra in the word alif-lam-ra shows that this word refers to the permanent institution of Mujaddidin and the sent ones, which will continue till the Day of Judgment. . . . All these miraculous works and victories which took place at the hands of the Mujaddidin among the followers of the Holy Prophet Muhammad after him, and will continue till the Day of Judgment, are really the achievements of the Holy Prophet." (Ruhani Khaza'in no. 2, vol. 2, p.63.)

Whom to follow? The choice is unmistakable: the Naib Nazir A’la or the Mahdi Massih (as)? The hapless ordinary Ahmadis, having sold their reason and intellect to their leaders and scholars, are condemned to swallow what they are told!

Reflect on what Allah says in the Holy Qur'an:

“On that day when their faces are turned over into the fire, they will say “Oh would that we had obeyed Allah and the Messenger! And they will say ‘Our Lord we obeyed our chiefs and our great ones and they led us astray from the way, Our Lord give them double punishment and curse them with a mighty curse”. [HQ 33: 67-69]

For other articles in the series, click here: 3 and 4