In
a previous article in the Blog we have noted some of the outstanding
allegations against Hadhrat Khalifa Sani (ra) (click here) from his critics– including the imposition of
social boycott against rebels in Qadian and even a murder case involving an Ahmadi alleged to have been “ordered” by
the second Khalifa. From our examination of some of the public records and court
judgements, what is apparent is that there was a religious, social and
political context in which the unfortunate events have occurred in the 1930’s
in Qadian under Hadhrat Khalifa Sani (ra).
As
we have shown in the article, while the towering Majlis-i-Ahrar leader Maulana Ataullah Shah Bukhari was prosecuted
and punished by the Lahore High Court for his hate speech and incitement to violence against the Ahmadis in a single public sermon in Qadian,
the same High Court in the same period absolved the second Khalifa of the allegation
of incitement to murder his “Muslim” enemies/ Ahmadi rebels, even after
examining several of his speeches
printed and published in the Ahmadi Press, including the “AL FAZL” of the 1930’s.
The Hon’ble High Court had before it those very sermons and it reached its
conclusions after forensically analysing the contents thereof and that too in
the context of a murder case which took place in Qadian itself.
Flawed Perception of a Complex
Legacy
Let
truth be told. It is not just the Lahori-fellow travellers who are guilty of a
flawed perception of a complex legacy of the past. Put differently, members of
both the mainstream Jamaats- Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya
Qadian and the Lahore Ahmadiyya
Movement are wrong in their ‘blames’ and ‘accusations’ against Hadhrat
Khalifa Sani (ra). If there is visceral hatred on the part of the enemies of
Hadhrat Khalifa Sani (ra) to implicate and consider that he “ordered” murders
and violence against his opponents, the people who claim they are his followers
in the “mainstream” Jamaat are equally guilty of the sin of deification, unexamined adulation and uncritical implementation of his policies even for a new age.
As
a thoughtful Ahmadi brother from the mainstream Jamaat wrote to us from Kerala
recently, a conspiracy of silence pervades in the Jamaat on the controversial
episodes. As a consequence, the Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya in the present times had
been prone to error. Almost half a century after the death of Hadhrat Mirza
Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad (ra), the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya continues to carry the
imprint of the Second Khalifa and his administrative and ideological positions,
including on the question of the election process for the Khalifa and the
question of Mujaddidiyat.
There
had been no serious attempt within the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya establishment to
understand and locate some of the official positions the Second Khalifa had
taken or the cryptic responses he had made in their true and proper context.
Without thinking and providing true leadership in a new age, the Khulafatul Massih after him put a shadow
of permanent doubt over the continuing validity of the policies he designed for
his times. As a consequence, the measures and policies he prescribed had been
frozen in time, leading to the commission of costly mistakes and serious
blunders by the succeeding Khulafa in the Jamaat, who preferred continuity of
the system over the need for embracing change in a new milieu in the life and
times of the Jamaat.
Social Boycott on a
Divine Servant
Today,
the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya applies social boycott on a Divine servant amongst us,
Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) of Mauritius and his Divine Mission is
officially treated as a rebellion against the present system of Khilafat. Instead
of seeing the measures of social boycott as a policy in an extremely difficult
religio-political situation in an exceptional and emergency situation pervading
in the then Qadian, the present administration has abused the policy even in an
entirely different social context. Any devout Ahmadi who retains his sense of
spirituality might wonder: can we look down upon the blessings of revelations
and true visions? While the world may in its stupidity reject these spiritual
phenomena, how come the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya apply boycott on a recipient of
Divine revelations amongst us? The people of the lost generations were
condemned in the Qur’an for persecuting the Prophets and oppressing the
righteous. Are
we becoming like the others before us?
For,
the cheaper breed of Mullahs, being factory-produced in the Jamiahs these days;
they sit in judgement over the Divine revelations and speak about things they
have no real knowledge about. They contemptuously dismiss the Divine Message of
our times and arrogantly justify the blatant violation of the fundamental
Islamic teachings at stake in the matter. If a generation before them embraced
Ahmadiyyat with true humility and fervent curiosity and an inner quest for the
true Divine, these have disgraced their true legacy and adopted a flawed
perception induced by the veils over their mundane vision.
Age of Blunders in the
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya
Ahmadis
today break their ties of blood and boycott their relatives for accepting a
Divine Messenger. And they proclaim that they are only following policies and
teachings of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya, as originally devised or instituted by the
second Khalifa. Consider the revolting irony here: as we have noted before, the bitter critics
and vocal opponents of the second Khalifa (ra) used to allege about practices
of social boycott and criminal intimidation in Qadian and the controversies and
cases surrounding his administration of the Jamaat in Qadian.
It
is, thus, astonishing to note that for all that is wrong on the part of the
Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya establishment today; they virtually blame the Second Khalifa
for it, although couched in the language of appreciation and continuation of
policies from those times, and their own personal commitment to the Khilafat. What
induces people to ‘outsource’ their minds? Can they hope to blame their leaders
on the Day of Judgement, when Allah (twa) shall question each one of their
faculties? Can the present day Ahmadis blame the second Khalifa (ra) for the
polies of social boycott in the Jamaat?
Most
certainly, the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Qadian
cannot trace the roots of its present policies of social boycott of Imam
Muhyi-ud-Din (atba) of Mauritius to the doorstep of Hadhrat Khalifa Sani (ra),
for the times and context and circumstances of his policies have absolutely no
resonance for the present situation. The fault lies in the flawed perception of
the ageing Fourth Khalifa who based himself on the wrong advice of his paid
workers. Hence, the present Khalifa and the chiefs cannot equate the policies
and seek religious legitimacy for the continued policy of boycotting a Divine
Reformer who has been raised precisely to point to the cracks and gaping holes
in the Nizam-e-Jamaat.
By
justifying their present criminality of refusal to recognize a Divine servant
of our times and worse still, equating the application of social boycott on him
in terms of the measures taken by the second Khalifa in the 1930s, Ahmadi
scholars only parade their non-application of mind and critical faculties in
appreciating the complex social context in which the Jamaat was called to
defend itself in the 1930’s. With characteristic thoughtlessness and
intellectual laziness, they take an embarrassing position very much detrimental
to their own cause and the just reputation of Hadhrat Khalifa Sani (ra).