Wednesday, April 19, 2017

19 April 2003: A Memoir


19th April 2003 is an important day in the annals of Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya (Qadian). It was on this day that the reigning caliph of the Jamaat, Khalifatul Massih IV Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad [1928-2003], passed away in London, UK. For devout Ahmadis, the day marked the end of an era within the ‘Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya’ system established after the death and departure of Promised Messiah Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as) [1835-1908] almost a century back in Qadian, India. An important phase in the succession saga of spiritual leadership in the Ahmadiyya community, the Day marks a time of  transition from one caliph to another elected by the assembly of the Ahmadis. Indeed, as is widely known,  the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya went on to elect and appoint yet another caliph in their 'Majlis Shura', in succession to the deceased fourth caliph, the fifth Khalifatul Massih Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad on 23 April 2003, marking continuity of leadership. 


Perhaps less widely-noticed, yet a very vital, parallel development also took shape on that eventful day of 19 April 2003. Far away from London, half way across the world, in the Indian Ocean-bound island state of Mauritius, an Ahmadi who believed in the divine mission of the promised Messiah (as), a man who claimed the authority of divine revelations, began accepting Bai’at at his hands from the Ahmadis, stating that he has been bestowed with spiritual titles, including as Hazrat Amir'ul Mu'mineen of this era. Hence, many Ahmadi followers of the new Divinely-raised Muhyiuddin relate the day with the formal inaugural of a new system of ‘Khilafat’ among the Ahmadis, heralding the advent of a Divine Manifestation among the Ahmadis in this era, Alhamdulillah, Allah-u-Akbar!


It was in the final years of the caliphate of Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad that a pious Ahmadi preacher in Mauritius, Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim, began to make the extraordinary claim that Allah (swt) raised him as His Elect of this era, to invite people to God and to strengthen Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya by sharing Divine revelations and spiritual verities being vouchsafed to him, with the assistance of Rooh-il-Quddus. It is also a matter of historic record and Divine destiny that the fourth Caliph thought highly of the noble qualities and preaching attainments of the future Divine Elect when he was still working as a missionary ambassador of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya into the various communities and nations of the Indian Ocean region. Yet, when the saintly figure was reported to have made the claims of being a recipient of Divine revelations, under misleading circumstances, he was expelled from the Nizam-e-Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyyaand social boycott was administratively enforced on those who preferred faith above the world. 


Even after expulsion from, and social boycott by, the system of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya in the final week of December 2000, Hazrat Munir A. Azim took spiritual patience, and officially began accepting Bai'at only on 19 April 2003, with the demise of the caliph Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad. 14 years have passed since the events of 19 April 2003. The mainstream Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya continues under the leadership of the fifth caliph, whereas Hazrat Imam Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Al Mahdi (aba) continues to preach the larger message of Oneness of God under a Divine mandate, clearly communicating to the people that he is an Elect of God in this era, the fifteenth century of Islam. By the grace of Allah (swt), there are increasing signs of his divine message finding resonance in various nations, in India, in Madagascar, in Comoros, and other Indian Ocean states, Subhaan Allah, Allah-u-Akbar!  

  

‘Khilafat’: Elects of men, and the Elects of God

 

It is instructive to study and deeply reflect upon the great guidance of the Promised Massih (as) on the course of action to be initiated with regard to the continuity of Jamaat functions in the times after him. Devout Ahmadis are to remain united under an elected leader till the time “when someone inspired by God with the Holy Spirit is raised by Him” . 

 

The Promised Massih (as) wrote in his testamentary will, AL WASSIYAT:

 

Let the righteous persons of the Jama‘at who have pure souls accept Bai‘at in my name[1].  (Such persons will be selected by consensus of the believers. Hence if forty believers agree that a person is competent to accept Bai‘at in my name, he will be entitled to accept Bai‘at….) 

 

God Almighty desires to draw all those who live in various habitations of the world, be it Europe or Asia, and who have virtuous nature, to the Unity of God and unite His servants under one Faith. This indeed is the purpose of God for which I have been sent to the world. You, too, therefore should pursue this end, but with kindness, moral probity and fervent prayers. And till that time when someone inspired by God with the Holy Spirit is raised by Him, all of you should work in harmony with one another….'



For almost a century, the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya continued with the tradition of electing and appointing a caliph to the seat of 'Khilafat' left behind by a caliph who died in office. The election procedure, whatever limited contestations may have been there, worked fine till the fourth caliph's time as there were no one proclaiming a Divine mandate based on being a recipient of revelations. Hence, the Promised Messiah (as)-given advise on following a man who speaks with the help of 'Rooh-il-Qudus' did not arise in the Jamaat till then. However, with the death and departure of the fourth Caliph on 2003 April 19, devout Ahmadis in Mauritius assembled around Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim, the recipient of Divine revelations as well as several, Divinely-bestowed, sublime spiritual titles  such as ‘Hazrat’, ‘Amirul Mu’mineen’, ‘Qamaran Munira’, etc.


First Bai’at in the HAND OF ALLAH (represented by the Messenger of Allah Munir A. Azim (aba)): In Quatre-Bornes (Mauritius), House of the Ummul Mu'mineen Sadr Saheba Fazli Amena on 19 April 2003, the day on which the 4th Khalifatul-Massih Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad died in London (UK).  It was on the second storey of the house, on Saturday 19 April 2003; after Maghrib-Esha prayers in congregation (Reference Book/ Magazine on the Life of the Messenger of Allah: The Light-Giving Moon, 2016). 

 

19 April 2003: A Muslim Student in an Indian Campus

 

When grand historic events happen, perhaps it is natural and all too human for ordinary folks like us to wonder: Where were you? Where was I? In this article, I seek to explore this question in my own way in relation to the extraordinary spiritual events of 19 April 2003. When Ahmadis in the United Kingdom, in Mauritius, and the rest of the world  were contemplating the future of the Jamaat after the demise of the reigning caliph, in faraway India, on that very topic of succession to the leadership of the Ahmadiyya community, common Ahmadis have had their share of conversations in their own everyday life settings. So was the case in my own life as an Ahmadi Muslim student in India at that point of time. Hence, the rest of the Article is an exposition on a memorable conversation and discussion this humble writer happened to have on that very important day, with my bunch of friends at a university campus in Bangalore, India. Perhaps even more importantly for me personally, it so happened that very many years later, I came to recognize the higher truth of those conversations in my own life, a point we shall return later.  


The University Ambience


In the early years of last decade, 2001-2003 to be precise, this humble writer was a graduate student at a well-known law school in the city. As someone who grew up in an obscure village in the deep South of India, the invitation to read for the Master's Degree in Law at the ‘Harvard of the East’ came as an unusually good opportunity at a very critical time in the formation of one’s personal, intellectual and spiritual outlook. For, the law school with its impressive academic culture of hosting legal scholars and visiting fellows, policy makers and social activists, eminent jurists and thoughtful teachers, had the right cerebral ambience for informed discussions and sharply-focused debates on the potential role of ‘law’ as an instrument of social stability, democratic change, social transformation, and justice. To make sense of the evolving social milieu and its legal and political questions including issues of equity and justice, scholars and jurists often advance innovative approaches for the interpretation of applicable legal texts and raise proposals for policy reforms in order to serve wider community interests. At the law school events, one could frequently observe gifted students critically engaging with accomplished scholars on manifold contemporary problems, especially the legal dimensions thereof- equity, fairness, rights and justice within the governance frameworks.

The Law school was a liberal space, secular in its ethos, tolerant of diverging traditions and accommodative of students of different faiths and communities, cosmopolitan in its outlook and urbane in its culture. Students were from all parts of the country, mostly of course from elite families and richer classes, children and heirs of influential bureaucrats, lawyers and businessmen. Yet, the elite national educational institution was not an island impervious to the whims and fluxes of the times, including the creeping identity consciousness in India. After all, with the deep fractures that lie beneath the veneer of civility and culture, our societies confront a range of complex issues and humongous challenges in our times. Like in most other elite institutions in India, Muslims are grossly underrepresented in the major law schools, despite their notable presence in the overall population. Only a handful of students on campus were Muslims: out of 400 students, only four of us were Muslims! This creates its own inter-personal dynamics in the world of students and young adults in colleges and universities. For instance, amidst a sea of Hindu students, in people's perception, a Muslim student is generally transformed into becoming the custodian and standard bearer of his religion and its cultural ethos. 


Debates on Islam with Hindu Friends



As the times were politically tumultuous, with catastrophic events such as the September 11 bombings and the subsequent American ‘war on terror’ hogging global media attention and the horror of the killing of thousands of Muslims in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat against a backdrop of large scale anti-Muslim communal mobilization in India, media coverage of terrorism and extremism often produced images of the Muslim as the ‘other’ in debates polarized between ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Islam was frequently depicted as a religion that inspired obscurantism, extremism, terrorism, and a cult of death promoting suicide bombings and wholesale destruction (God Forbid). 



The burning topics of the day invariably found their way into our mind spaces as graduate students, and in our conversations with each other in the Hostel, we often discussed matters of politics, religion, national identity and community consciousness, especially against the regional and international backdrop of events and controversies concerning Islam and the Muslims. Hence, beyond the class room, our evenings were full of discussions about the role of Islam in our times, especially in shaping one’s moral, intellectual, political and spiritual outlook, and what it means for society at large. These informal debates were not always easy or cordial and sometimes turned emotional and surcharged. Occasional expressions of prejudices and unfair accusations against the religion and community were fiercely contested and robustly refuted by the Muslim representative. Of course, the cauldron of razor-sharp argumentation over the relative merits of the respective positions on offer, certainly helped the young men to revisit their original positions, especially the received (uncritically accepted) notions about the ‘other’. Just as one learns about many things through constant observation and interaction with people, it is humbling to recognize in retrospect that just as I learned many things about our complex world in the company of my friends, they could also evolve a perspective on Islam, in their own ways through being fellow hostel residents and friends in and out of the Class rooms! 



19 April 2003: The Day in My Life

 

One has vivid recollections of that Day in one’s life as an unusual Birthday. It so happened that two of my bosom friends- Mr. Narayan Sharma and Mr. Rajesh Kumar (Batch mates at the University; also fellow Hostel residents) decided that we go out of Campus that Saturday evening to have dinner together as that day happened to be my birthday. While one does not usually have a tradition of marking JanamDin at home, ironically, one’s memory returns to that evening for the normal, simple, joyous, open- hearted conversations we have had that night over and after dinner in the backdrop of the birthday. 



From the joy of quietly marking one’s 25th year in this world, we returned to our Hostel Room, only to receive unsettling news. Those were days before the mobile phones became a ubiquitous presence in India. So, conversations with family over telephone was generally based on agreed timings, and the Hostel landline telephone used to ring for one only on Sunday mornings every week. That Saturday night, however, unusually for me, the telephone rang and on the other end of the phone call was my elder brother Fouse Jamal, and one instantly knew that there must be something urgent and important for the call that night. Fouse was at that time based out of Cochin (Kerala) working for the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya in its auxiliary youth wing, Majlis Khuaddamul Ahmadiyya holding important responsibilities for the whole State of Kerala as its General Secretary. With a deep sense of sorrow, Fouse conveyed the news about the passing away of the fourth Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad.   



All of us in the family has had deep affection for, and connection with, the Jamaat of the Promised Massih (as) and the death of its elected head appeared like the loss of one’s own family member. The news about the death of the fourth caliph came as a shock, though one knew that the caliph was already at an advanced age and was not keeping well. Sometimes, our moments of joy are so fleeting and transient: from remembering a birth, we moved quickly to mark a death, all in fleeting time! (Fouse’ own untimely demise at the age of 31, in November 2007, is still an aching memory for one’s heart and when he died, the Khalifatul Massih V remembered his attachment/connection with the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya, including with the fourth caliph). 

 

‘Ahmadiyya Khilafat’ in Transition

 

My sorrow at the demise of the fourth caliph was shared in the company of my friends at the university hostel. Almost two years of life together in the campus hostel has made them familiar with my temperament, intellectual interests, spiritual inclinations and religious practices. The non-Muslim friends often witnessed quietly their fellow student regularly offering Namaz; going every week for Jumuah Namaz to the Ahmadi Mosque in the city; fasting in the month of Ramadan; engaging in silent ruminations on the Holy Qur'an and other spiritual writings. Though they came from very different backgrounds, cultural contexts and distinct political orientation, our views and opinions on all issues that appealed to our respective sensibilities evolved through sustained conversations over time. In any case, their perceptions about Muslims and Islam as a religion seem to have positively moderated, perhaps in solidarity with a Muslim friend; perhaps, in large measure to what they have come to observe, discover, learn and understand about the unique and intrinsic vitality of the sublime teachings that under-gird the profound faith of the Muslims in their everyday lives. As such, the friends developed a healthy respect for what one had told them about Islam, as they became increasingly familiar with the outlook of Islam as explained by the Promised Massih (as) in his writings. They also became familiar with the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya in Islam and understood the institutional framework of community leadership among the Ahmadis, known as the Ahmadiyya Khilafat


 

'Khilafat': An Alternative Conception


In the backdrop of the death of the fourth incumbent and the creation of a vacancy at the top position of ‘Khalifatul Massih’, the non-Muslim friends were curious about the future of Ahmadiyya leadership and its electoral process. Mr. Rajesh Kumar, one of the friends was a Dalit-Hindu in social origin, with a political orientation that is Left-leaning and Marxist in its concern for social justice and equality. He admired Islam for its deep teachings on universal brotherhood and human solidarity across races and tribes. He conceded that the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya preached Islam very persuasively. Yet, he found an intriguing structural problem: 'Ahmadiyya Khilafat' is a family enterprise of the Mirza clan at the top of the order, with the first family of the Jamaat occupying and monopolizing leadership through the century since its inception. (Inset: with Rajesh at the Law School, a photo from 2003).



From a purely rational and material conception of organizational dynamics, if a community institution like the Ahmadiyya Khilafat is closely controlled by a family (elite class) and its continuity is ensured through the privileging of its own family lineage, then, it says its own story about the real place and position of the masses/ common folks within it. All such arrangements smacks of nepotism and worse, unfairly compromises on foundational principles of true deliberation and real consensus building through informed consultation- processes that are at the heart of Islamic administration. Since Islam theorizes that no one can judge the faith of others, all claims of pious first, family over leadership is simply a matter of perception. If the Jamaat leadership is closed to 'ordinary' folks and the community is not really allowed to look beyond the first family to lead it even in a new century, then, the theoretical tribute to equality of all peoples and races amounts to nothing but an empty gesture, signifying nothing in reality...


Our friend further asked the Ahmadi student [this humble self]:


'You (Ahmadis) claim that African peoples have embraced your Jamaat whole-heartedly and that there are thousands of Ahmadis across the African continent. Why not appoint the new Khalifa from among the African Ahmadis? If you appoint a progeny of the “slaves’’ in Africa to the highest seat of power within your Association, then, you can claim that you have truly respected Islamic teachings in this regard.'



Under the Islamic spiritual and normative tradition, there is no scope for family feelings, nor any special claims to leadership; no infallibility claims are admissible when it comes to any office. Likewise, in the responsibility of choosing a religious leader, men should not privilege 'family' in a narrow way: under the religious doctrine and the Law, there is no distinction between claimants and claimants except on the ground of piety and righteousness: race, kinship, nationality, geographical origin do not, and should not, simply matter! Hence, the Muslim student, notwithstanding his being a member of the Ahmadiyya community, readily conceded that facts cannot be denied and agreed that there is a manifest legitimacy issue in the continued absence of non-family member (including an African Ahmadi) at the leadership of the Nizam-e-Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya as Khalifatul Massih even after a century of 'Majlis Shura' process.


When we were in this discussion, it was 9.30-10.00 pm, India Standard Time. And in Mauritius, it must have been 8.00-8.30 pm. Unknown to us at that time, yet almost at the same time that we were discussing the Khilafat Transition question in far away India, Allah (swt) unveiled His plan to appoint a son of Africa in Mauritius to the sublime office of Muhyi-ud-Din  in the Jamaat of the Promised Massih (as), Alhamdulillah, Summa Alhamdulillah.   



In retrospect, one reflects with a large dose of humility and gratification that Allah (swt) wants us to use our minds to appreciate hidden reality and to recognize His signs, be it in nature, and in our own selves and surroundings, and especially when a pious man communicates the extraordinary blessing of Divine bounty, grace and mercy to the people. Indeed, 'belief in the Unseen' is a trait of true believers. Even without being recipients of Divine revelations, ordinary people like us can accede to the essential truth of Divine Will entailed in sending down a chosen messenger amongst us. When we deploy our God-gifted faculty of reasoning, and keep an open mind and heart to recognize the descent of His manifestation in our times, we reach the right conclusions, Insha Allah, Aameen. 


Hence, it is also interesting to note that many, many years after the Law School [hostel] night discussion, it so happened that bearing witness to the profound truth of that rational/academic discussion about the nature, structure and future of Ahmadiyya Khilafat, Allah (swt) brought about circumstances in one's life in India to know about the Divine Manifestation in Africa, and by the sheer grace and blessings of Allah (swt), one could go on to recognize and accept the spiritual claims associated with the advent of the Khalifatullah Al Mahdi Hazrat Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius. In October 2010, seven years after the 2003 April 19 events, for the first time, I  came to hear about and then, went on to recognize the spiritual claims of Hazrat Munir A. Azim (aba) as the true Khalifatul Massih and Khalifatullah Al Mahdi of this era. Moreover, almost 14 years after the spiritual events and Campus discussions of 19 April 2003, this humble writer could personally meet with Hazrat Saheb (aba) during a recently-concluded, soul-enriching, spiritually-uplifting India-visit, Subhaan Allah, Alhamdulillah, Allah-u-Akbar!