Demystifying Ahmadiyya Khilafat

In the April 2011 issue of the Review of Religions, Harris Zafar of USA has written an editorial article: Demystifying ‘Caliphate’.  The article is an eloquent argument in favour of looking at Khilafat as a spiritual phenomenon as against the tendency to look at the whole issue from a political, state-centric, power-oriented prism.

According to Mr. Zafar, the finest example of Islamic Khilafat was in the early era when the rightly guided Khalifas presided over the Muslim Community for a period of 30 years after the death of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa). He argues that spirituality was lost for over a millennium from the Islamic world only to be restored back with the establishment of the Ahmadiyya Khilafat. And he considers that the current Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Community is “God- appointed”.

Mr. Zafar’s argument is, however,  riddled with a major lacuna: in the pursuit of demystifying Islamic Khilafat, he ended up reducing its profound spiritual connotations and mystifying the Ahmadiyya Khilafat. He considers only the rightly-guided Khalifas in the early Islam and the establishment of Khilafat in the Ahmadiyya Community as examples of the spiritual, real Khilafat. In other words, he has reduced Islamic Khilafat to the system of elected representatives presiding over the Community. Thus, he indirectly ends up arguing that in the more than 1400- year old history of Islam, the real Islam was in place for a mere period of 150 years or less if we combine the period of early Islamic Khilafat and the Ahmadiyya Khilafat.

An Indian Scientist on Satya Sai Baba

In his Friday Sermon of May 06, 2011, Hadhrat Khalifathullah Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib narrated his encounter with the Indian godman Satya Sai Baba at his den in Puttaparthy in 2005. The Khalifathullah explained how his family and he himself had to escape from mortal danger from the place under extraordinary circumstances- the situation emerging in the backdrop of his daring refusal to condone the worship of the godman as God himself, as others in the place were doing.

The criminal proclivity of the men surrounding the Sai Baba and their history of criminally assaulting inconvenient people is now independently confirmed by the distinguished Indian scientist Dr. Pushpa M. Bhargawa in an article published in the widely-respected national newspaper The Hindu Daily, May 15, 2011.

Read the Article:

The phenomenon of Satya Sai Baba

As the dust after the death of Satya Sai Baba has largely settled, it is time to evaluate him, his work and its implications, objectively and unemotionally, for there is a good deal to be learnt from his life and death.

His rise to fame from an ordinary, even humble background, was based on (i ) his claim that he was the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba ; (ii) his claim that he represented divinity, that is, God himself ; (iii) that, consequently, he had powers that no mortal man had ; (iv) that he could provide succour and mental peace to people who came to him with problems of various kinds ; and (v) that he engaged himself in charitable works like opening hospitals and providing potable water to villagers.

Press Report in Kerala on the Divine Manifestation

Leading Malayalam Daily, Madhyamam, published an article on the Divine Manifestion in Mauritus and the Kerala disciples of the new Prophet of Allah on May 15, 2011.

A NEW PROPHET IN MAURITIUS

   Kodiyathoor:   

In the Qadiani sect of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat, the appearance of a new claimant to Prophethood has become a controversy.  Munir Ahmad Azim of Mauritius is the one who claims that he is a Messenger of Allah and the Reformer of the Fifteenth Century. Through his website, he has proclaimed that he is a recipient of divine revelations in English, French, German, Arabic and other languages and that the revelations contain mainly warnings  against the guilty ones of the age.

Many Indian and Pakistani Ahmadis have joined the fold of Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam founded by Azim. In Kerala also, its local branches have been established. Amir Jamaluddin Raother (of Kollam) informs that more than 20 Ahmadis from Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kannur and Mathra have become members in the new movement. Qadiani writer E. Tahir (of Kannur) and his family are among them.

The current Divine Manifestation in Mauritius recognizes the Qadiani Prophet and claims that he is sent for this Century.

As a response to the claim of a Qadiani missionary that the death of the young son of the Kerala Amir is due to accepting the new Prophet, a Mubahala challenge has been issued against the missionary, according to the information available at the website.

  © Madhyamam (Malayalam) Daily, Calicut Edition, May 15, 2011

Intolerance among Kerala Ahmadis

[This is the fourth article in the series on "Kerala Ahmadis and the New Mujaddid", critically examining the responses of Kerala Ahmadi leadership towards the new Mujaddid Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) of Mauritius and his disciples in India, from among the Kerala Ahmadis who joined the Divine Manifestation]. 

In a recent opinion piece published in a major newspaper, Ifthikar Ahmed Sahib, an Ahmadi Professor in Kerala, underscored the need for giving space to dissenting ideas and alternative perspectives. He states: “The core aspect for all the material and spiritual ideologies is to look at dissenting perspectives with due respect and to deal with differences of opinions by engaging in productive dialogue. And the mental broadness to assimilate diverging opinions is precisely the corner stone of any democratic polity”. The Professor, then, went on to illustrate his point with reference to the decline of liberal values in Kerala society.

Is the Ahmadiyya Community an exception to this rule? Does their practice match up to what they preach? Do they show tolerance and a desire to engage with a diverging perspective from theirs? Or do they betray anger and hatred instead?

Mujaddidiyat: Three Ahmadis, Three Views!

[This article is the third in the series on Kerala Ahmadis and the New Mujaddid, critically examining the response of Kerala Ahmadiyya leadership to the coming of a Mujaddid in the new Century and the establishment of the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam, Kerala in 2010.  The previous installments were published here on May 14 & 15, 2011].

"My community will not agree on misguidance"-   Prophet Muhammad (sa) 

The senior leadership of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat has spoken. The Naib Nazir A’la Maulana Muhammad Umar Sahib is convinced that Ahmadiyya Khilafat is the permanent institution till the Day of Judgement. Man elected/ selected Khulafa may have erred on the doctrine and practice of Islam in the past. But the Ahmadiyya Khulafa are infallible human beings, incapable of delivering injustice in administrative matters nor can they move away from Sahih Al Islam through their pronouncements. All evidences to the contrary should be buried and ignored!

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).

Kerala Ahmadis and the new Mujaddid-I

Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam, which was established in March 2008 by the Mujaddid of the new Century Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib of Mauritius, crossed the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea and reached the shores of Kerala, India in September –October 2010. 

Supporting and endorsing an Elect of Allah is the binding duty and responsibility of believers who live in the time of a Divine Reformer. Thus Jamaluddin Sahib of Mathra was the first person in India to have the honour of accepting and becoming a disciple of the new Massih of Allah. Strangely, however, the Ahmadi Maulanas are standing up against the great Divine favour on the Community.

When the Massih of Allah elevated his first disciple in Kerala to the position of Amir Jamaat after the formation of the Jamaat in the State, the Maulanas gave went to their anger at the Divine favour by trying to assassinate the character and honour of the disciples of the new Massih. They seek to extinguish the Light of Allah through all foul means possible. At this juncture, it is important to remind them of what they don’t want to remember or hear: 

That till recently Jamaluddin Sahib of Mathra was an honourable man in the Jamaat. More than 50 people took Bai’at and were initiated into the Jamaat through him. He was instrumental in the formation of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat in two places in South Kerala: Mathra and Trivandrum, the capital city of the State. And some of the Ahmadis who took Bai’at through him later went on to form another branch of the Jamaat in the neighbouring State of Tamil Nadu as well. These are uncommon achievements by the record and practice of the Kerala Ahmadiyya Jamaat today. It would not have been possible but for the combination of special blessings of Allah and sincere  efforts of the people concerned. Caught up in the cauldron of jealousy and  hubris, can the leadership be expected to have the humility to acknowledge contributions or care about higher notions of gratefulness?