The Ethics of Islamic Veil

In his Friday Sermon of 20 May 2011, Hadhrat Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (atba) of Mauritius spoke at length about the question of gender equality in the social order. Based on his deep insight, the Khalifatullah rejects the western notion that Islamic veil seeks to seclude women at the cost of her individual freedom and spiritual identity. He explains the profound moral precepts of Islam that seeks to promote family values and maintain a complex balance in gender relations in society- while restraining unhindered mixing of men and women, it does promote healthy interactions across the gender divide by observing the Islamic norms. He calls for abundant caution in the pursuit of addressing “any weakness (or) immoderation in the system” and asserts that the system is essentially rooted on the principles of “justice and equity, balance and proportion”.

Read the extracts from the Friday Sermon:

Islam on Women’s Rights

Gender relations and women’s space, rights and status in Islam have been a perennial source of debate in the recent times. In a series of sermons in May 2011, Hadhrat Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib has now reflected on various aspects of this wide-ranging issue. Reproduced below are extracts from the Friday Sermon of May 20, 2011.

“As a fundamental of its system, Islam holds that the woman is a human being; and she has a soul similar to that of man. The Holy Quran says: “O people! Be careful of (your duty to) your Lord, Who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same (kind) and spread from these two, many men and women; and be careful of (your duty to) Allah, by Whom you demand one of another (your rights), and (to) the ties of relationship; surely Allah ever watches over you.” (4:2)

Thus, men and women are quite equal to each other in their origin, their abode as well as in their place of return and are as such entitled to similar and equal rights. Islam gave her the right to life, to honour, and to property like men. She is an honourable being and it is not permissible for anyone to find fault with her or backbite her. No one is permitted to spy on her or hold her in contempt due to her functions as a woman. These are the rights that both men and women enjoy, there being no differentiation against either of them.

So, none can deny the fact that as human beings, man and woman are equal. Both make up the human race together as its equal constituent parts. Both are equal partners in building up community life, creating and bringing about civilisation, and thus serving humanity. Both have been endowed with hearts, brain and reasoning power and both possess feelings, desires and the other human instincts. Both stand in need of mental and intellectual training and education so that they may duly contribute to the happiness and welfare of society.

Ahmadiyya List of Mujaddidin

An Ahmadi scholar, Waheed Ahmad Sahib, has written a book: A Book of Religious Knowledge (for Ahmadi Muslims).  [(1995); p.352: ill; 22cm.ISBN 1 887494 05 9]. He provides the List of Mujaddidin who appeared in every century up to the last Century. He writes:

A list of various "Renovators" who have appeared during the past fourteen hundred years is given below. These mujaddids were the most outstanding saints and scholars of their time and did much to reform the religion of Islam, of their day.

In this list, only one Mujaddid is given for each century. Many Muslims, however, recognize more than one Mujaddid for some centuries.

Mujaddidin of Islam

A Mujaddid is a person who renews or renovates the religion of Islam. According to a Hadith of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa), which has been recorded by Abu Da'ood, renovators will appear during every century of Islam:

"Verily, God shall raise for this community, at the beginning of every century, one who will renovate for it its religion".

Many a venerable Muslim saints who lived among the members of the Community since the advent of Prophet Muhammad (sa) either declared themselves to be the Mujaddid of their respective age or else had honored some other sage with this appellation. And the Muslims have, by consensus revered, them as such. For the benefit of our readers, we are providing below the following information on the question of Mujaddidiyat in Islam available at the official website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Demystifying the Ahmadiyya Khilafat-II

Today, the Ahmadi Muslims attribute a mystical halo around their current Khalifa Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad Sahib. This extraordinary reverence has to do with three distinct assumptions:

1) Ahmadiyya Jamaat established true Islamic Khilafat for the first time in over a millennium after the departure of the rightly-guided Khalifas of early Islam.

2) The current Khalifa is the Imam of the Age and appointed by none other than Allah Himself.

3) No one on the face of earth will get the Divine favour of a spiritual station above that of the Ahmadiyya Khalifa.

As a divinely-assured religion, Islam challenges its opponents to the battle ground of proof and evidence in favour of beliefs that they claim to uphold. Like wise, the mystical halo of the Khalifa can be assessed on the altar of Islamic spirituality and we can analyse how far the halo remains behind after a critical examination on the basis of Qur’anic doctrine.  

As we have noted in the previous installment of this essay [To access that part, click here), the idea that Ahmadiyyat restored Islamic Khilafat after a millennium is sheer nonsense, if we go by the Divine plan for Islam and the Holy Prophet’ prophecies on the issue. If you have any respect left for Promised Massih (as), you cannot argue the case that Islam failed to offer a permanent Khilafat to the Muslim Ummah or that Allah failed to raise His Khulafa in every age in the service of His chosen faith. This kind of a claim would completely contradict his belief and impassioned arguments on the subject. More significantly, such a world view depicts Islam poorly in the company of other great faiths: what is so special about Islam if it cannot produce living testimonials in favour of its majesty and grandeur in every age?

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.